Bomber crashes into Empire State Bldg. 1945

[Armistead]

I wasn't aware this happened.



Amazed this lady survived...

Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was injured. Rescuers decided to transport her on an elevator which they did not know had weakened cables. She survived a plunge of 75 stories, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall.[7]

[Aktungbby]

My dad, a Brooklyn boy, was there for that one. You can still find burn marks if you know where to look. Unfortunately the gentleman from my college who showed me this and other notable Manhattan buildings, was in the world trade center in his office on the North side of tower one on the hundredth floor... My uncle was in tower two and my sister-in-law was in building seven which was also damaged on 9-11. I don't tour skyscrapers much any more. Another college mate recently sent me a photo of my friend's name on the monument which replaces tower one.

[Wolferz]

And it didn't fall down. They don't build anything right these days.

[Jimbuna]

Interesting...never knew that.

Is the hole , the one made reference to right at the end, still there?

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

And it didn't fall down. They don't build anything right these days.

Well, you can't compare a B-25 to a modern airliner. The difference in size, weight, speed and fuel capacity is huge.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Well, you can't compare a B-25 to a modern airliner. The difference in size, weight, speed and fuel capacity is huge.

Both buildings were engineered differently as well. From my understanding this played a large factors in the towers coming down.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Both buildings were engineered differently as well. From my understanding this played a large factors in the towers coming down.

Well, they tried at least...

From Wikipedia...
Empire State Building incident[edit source | edit]

Main article: B-25 Empire State Building crash
At 9:40 on Saturday, 28 July 1945 a USAAF B-25D crashed in thick fog into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors. Fourteen people died - 11 in the building and the three occupants of the aircraft including the pilot, Colonel William Smith.[12] Betty Lou Oliver, an elevator attendant, survived the impact and a subsequent uncontrolled descent in the elevator.
As a partial result of this incident, Towers 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand an aircraft impact. However, this design came with the then-new Boeing 707 in mind, not the larger and faster Boeing 767 - two of which struck the towers on September 11, 2001, resulting in their eventual collapse.[13]

Though I'm still puzzled as to why the towers began collapsing from the top floors down, when the aircraft impacted the buildings much lower and the structures were supported by 48 central columns of concrete and woven steel reinforcement. The real puzzle is building seven which was minimally damaged and dropped in its own footprint like a controlled demolition.