On a foggy Saturday morning in July 1945, New Yorkers witnessed something unthinkable: a twin-engine bomber slamming into the world's tallest building at 200 miles per hour. The B-25 Mitchell bomber tore a hole 18 feet wide and 20 feet deep into the north side of the Empire State Building, sending debris raining onto the streets below and igniting fires that would take 40 minutes to extinguish.

Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith Jr., an experienced and decorated pilot, was flying a routine personnel transport mission from Massachusetts to Newark Airport. He'd logged hundreds of hours in B-17 bombers, but this was only his second time piloting a B-25. When he radioed LaGuardia Field for landing instructions, the tower controller warned him about the weather and advised against coming into Manhattan. Smith pressed on anyway.

Flying Blind Through the Fog

The fog was so thick that morning that Smith couldn't see the tops of skyscrapers until it was too late. Witnesses reported seeing the bomber emerge from the clouds, dangerously low, weaving between buildings in Midtown Manhattan. At 9:49 AM, the aircraft struck the north face of the Empire State Building between the 78th and 80th floors.

The impact was catastrophic. One of the plane's engines shot completely through the building and out the south side, plummeting onto a twelve-story building across the street and igniting a fire. The other engine and part of the landing gear crashed into an elevator shaft, severing the cables.

The Miracle Survivor

Twenty-year-old elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived the initial crash despite serious burns. Rescuers placed her in an elevator to bring her down to safety. They didn't know the cables had been damaged.

The elevator plummeted 75 floors—over 1,000 feet—in what remains the longest elevator fall survived in history. The emergency braking system and a cushion of compressed air in the shaft at the bottom slowed her descent just enough to save her life. She survived with a broken pelvis, back, and neck.

The Human Toll

Fourteen people died that day: the three crew members aboard the bomber and eleven people working in the building, mostly employees of the Catholic War Relief Services whose offices occupied the impact floors. An estimated 24 others were injured, many suffering severe burns from the aviation fuel that ignited on impact.

The crash caused an estimated $1 million in damage—about $17 million in today's dollars. But remarkably, the Empire State Building's structural integrity wasn't compromised. The building was designed with a steel frame that could withstand significant impact, and workers had the damaged offices repaired and reopened within three months.

The building was open for business as usual on Monday morning, just two days after a bomber had punched a hole through it. The observation deck remained closed for several weeks, but the rest of the building operated normally—a testament to both the building's engineering and New York's resilience.

A Footnote to War's End

The crash occurred less than two weeks before Japan's surrender would end World War II. In the final accounting of the war's tragedies, this accident became a footnote—a reminder that even on home soil, far from combat, the machinery of war could exact a terrible price.

Today, few physical traces of the crash remain. The Empire State Building stands as it did before, its Art Deco facade restored. But the incident established aviation safety protocols still in use today and proved that even the world's most iconic skyscraper could survive the unthinkable.

Related Tags