At 9:49 on the drizzly, misty morning of July 28, 1945, an Army B-25 crashed into the north side of the cloud-shrouded colossus. The pilot was Lieutenant Colonel William Smith, who had been decorated for flying 500 combat hours during WWII. He was on his way from Bedford Field outside of Boston to Newark Airport to pick up his commanding officer. Mistakenly, the control tower at La Guardia Airport gave him clearance to fly to Newark over Manhattan. The pilot's last words were: "From where I'm sitting I can't see the top of the Empire State Building."
When it hit the building the plane exploded in a fireball, tearing a jagged 18x20 foot hole between the [I 012 / 78th and 79th floors] and spewing 800 gallons of flaming gasoline into halls and stairways five stories up and down. One of the plane's engines shot across the 78th floor, ripping through the south side of the building, and wound up in a sculptor's studio on the opposite side of 33rd Street.
The other motor, along with part of the landing gear, smashed through the brick wall of an elevator shaft, shearing an I-beam and landing atop an empty car, which then plunged to the subcellar, touching off another fire. The crash also weakened the cables of another elevator. Betty Lou Oliver, a 20-year-old elevator operator, was just descending from the 79th floor when the car began to fall. Automatic safety devices slowed the elevator somewhat, but it still gathered speed as it continued to fall. It landed with enough force to jam the rubber safety bumper at the bottom of the shaft through the floor of the car. Heavy loops of cable spilled on to the top of the car. Oliver was rescued by Donald Moloney, who was visiting the building during his leave from a Coast Guard medical training program.
Minutes before, two men had been standing at the very spot where the plane crashed. However, they had been called by their boss to meet them in a barber shop rather than the office. They got downstairs just as the plane crashed 79 stories above their heads.
Fire fighters were able to take elevators to the 67th floor, but they had to hoof it from there. Despite this, they had the fire put out within 40 minutes.
Fourteen people were killed in the accident: 11 workers trapped in the Catholic War Relief offices on the 79th floor, the pilot and two military passengers. Another 26 were injured. The death toll might have been higher but for the fact that the 78th floor was still unrented and was thus not occupied. It was also a Saturday, and few people were working. There were 50 or 60 people on the observation deck, but they were led to safety.
It took 12 months and nearly one million dollars to repair the building.
