Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• In 1945, an American B-25 on a transport mission crashed into the Empire State Building in Manhattan.
• The 102-story skyscraper remained structurally intact, but 14 people died from the accident.
• Amidst tragedy, a miraculous survival occurred—a woman lived through the world’s longest elevator fall.

In mid-summer 1945, a U.S. Army B-25 Mitchell bomber on a transport trip took an unplanned route through Manhattan. The flight carried three people (Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith Jr., crew chief Christopher Domitrovich, and machinist Albert Perna), and was headed to Newark Airport to pick up Smith’s commanding officer, Colonel H.E. Bogner, for a return trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But what began as a relatively quick flight from Bedford Army Air Field near Boston to Newark turned perilous when the B-25 got lost in thick fog.

The morning’s weather was poor, with rain and low clouds blanketing the region. Smith’s original plan was a direct instrument flight from Bedford to Newark, navigating by his cockpit gauges above the clouds. But Newark already had too much air traffic, so controllers wouldn’t clear him for an instrument departure until after 11 a.m. Smith needed to be in Newark by 10 to pick up Colonel Bogner, and he didn’t want to call ahead about a delay. So he asked about an alternative: flying under “contact” rules through the airspace of New York Municipal Airport in Queens (now known as La Guardia). That airport reported a 1,500-foot ceiling, meaning Smith could depart immediately, but only if he stayed below the cloud cover and maintained visual contact with the ground for the entire flight. If the ceiling dropped below 1,000 feet, the flight would have to be terminated.

The 27-year-old West Point graduate had already earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses in over 100 combat missions, but he was flying a B-25 for only the second time, and without a copilot. He took off from Massachusetts at 8:55 a.m. despite the rain and low clouds. As Smith neared New York, the La Guardia control tower advised him to land there rather than continue to Newark in the worsening fog. But Smith insisted on pressing ahead. The tower cleared him for Newark—while warning that they couldn’t even see the top of the Empire State Building.

Minutes later, Smith became disoriented in the fog and mistook Manhattan for his approach to Newark. Soon he was flying at dangerously low elevations among the city’s skyscrapers. One report noted that the B-25 flew past the New York Central Office building level with the 22nd floor. Flying low and slow, Smith navigated the city streets and narrowly missed a collision with the Chrysler Building in Midtown, but at at 9:49 a.m his maneuvers led the B-25 directly into the north side of the Empire State Building. The collision created a hole 18 feet wide and 20 feet deep in the side of the offices of the Catholic War Relief Services, between the 79th and 80th floors.

Because the collision happened on a Saturday, it caused fewer casualties than would have been the case on a weekday, since many workers in the building had the day off. But the event was still a catastrophe. The crash ignited a fire and killed 14 people, including 11 who were inside the Empire State Building (nine office workers, a janitor, and an elevator operator) and all three aboard the plane. The high-speed impact also sent building and aircraft debris falling from the skyscraper. One of the plane’s engines shot through the skyscraper and exited the south side of the structure before landing on a penthouse across the street, where it started another fire. Additional debris littered the tops of nearby buildings.

The aircraft’s other engine severed 16 elevator cables, sending one car—with its operator inside—plummeting with the engine still on the roof of the car. Luckily, the elevator’s automatic emergency brake slowed the plunging car, and a pile of cables softened the 1,000-foot, 75-floor crash. Rescuers were able to successfully free Betty Lou Oliver from the damaged car after what is still considered the longest fall ever survived in an elevator.

Incredibly, despite the gaping hole the crash created, the Empire State Building maintained its structural integrity. The damage, however, did prompt a $1 million repair for what was the world’s tallest building until 1971, and which remains an icon of New York City to this day.