{"id":3548644,"date":"2026-07-03T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=3548644"},"modified":"2026-07-04T14:41:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T12:41:38","slug":"b-25-empire-state-building-crash-1945-betty-lou-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/b-25-empire-state-building-crash-1945-betty-lou-oliver\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bomber That Hit the Empire State"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<p>Saturday morning, 28 July 1945. New York is wrapped in fog so thick that the top third of the Empire State Building has simply vanished. At 9:40 a.m., office workers on the 79th floor hear a sound no office worker should ever hear: aircraft engines, close, and getting louder. Seconds later a ten-ton B-25 Mitchell bomber, lost in the murk at more than 200 miles per hour, slams into the north face of the tallest building on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Fourteen people die. A fireball rolls through the offices of a wartime Catholic relief agency. An engine punches clean through the building and falls out the other side. And a 20-year-old elevator operator named Betty Lou Oliver is about to survive something no human being has survived before or since.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 24px;margin:24px 0;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts: The Empire State Building Crash<\/p><table style=\"border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px;line-height:1.5\"><tbody><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Date<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">Saturday, 28 July 1945, 9:40 a.m.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Aircraft<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">North American B-25D Mitchell &ldquo;Old John Feather Merchant&rdquo;, US Army Air Forces<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Pilot<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr., 27 &mdash; decorated B-17 pilot, 42+ combat missions over Europe<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Impact<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">79th floor, north face, ~200+ mph, an 18-by-20-foot hole<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">Toll<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">14 dead (3 aboard, 11 in the building), ~two dozen injured<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;font-weight:600;white-space:nowrap;vertical-align:top\">The record<\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0\">Betty Lou Oliver survived a 75-storey elevator fall &mdash; still the Guinness record<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Lost Over Manhattan<\/h2>\n<p>William Smith had flown through the worst flak in Europe and come home with medals. That morning his mission was mundane: a personnel run from Bedford, Massachusetts, to New York, then on to Newark to collect a passenger. Descending into the fog, cleared toward Newark but warned about visibility &mdash; the tower noting it could not see the top of the Empire State Building &mdash; Smith became disoriented among the towers of midtown. He skirted the Chrysler Building over 42nd Street, banked the wrong way, and ran out of sky.<\/p>\n<p>Catherine O&rsquo;Connor was at her desk in the War Relief Services office on the 79th floor when the north wall exploded:<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #d32f2f;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The plane exploded within the building. There were five or six seconds &mdash; I was tottering on my feet trying to keep my balance &mdash; and three-quarters of the office was instantaneously consumed in this sheet of flame.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Catherine O&rsquo;Connor<\/strong> &mdash; War Relief Services employee and survivor, 79th floor<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>Eleven people in the relief office died, many of them young women doing wartime charity work. The three men aboard the bomber &mdash; Smith, Staff Sergeant Christopher Domitrovich, and a Navy machinist&rsquo;s mate hitching a ride home &mdash; were killed instantly.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1980099620  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/empire-state-crash-wreckage-1945.jpg\" alt=\"Wreckage inside the Empire State Building, 1945\" style=\"display:block;width:100%;height:auto\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Wreckage strewn through the 79th floor offices. One engine crossed the entire building and landed on a sculptor&rsquo;s studio across 33rd Street. Photo: 1945 press photograph, public domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Longest Fall Anyone Ever Survived<\/h2>\n<p>The bomber&rsquo;s two engines became wrecking balls. One crossed the full width of the tower, exited the south wall, and crashed through the roof of a penthouse art studio a block away. The other sheared into an elevator shaft &mdash; and severed the cables above a car.<\/p>\n<p>Betty Lou Oliver, badly burned at her 80th-floor post, had just been helped into an elevator to be taken down for treatment. The weakened cables snapped. Her car fell seventy-five storeys &mdash; roughly a thousand feet &mdash; into the sub-basement. A cushion of compressed air in the sealed shaft and a spring of coiled cable beneath the car slowed the impact just enough. Rescuers cut through the wreckage and found her alive: broken pelvis, broken back, broken neck &mdash; and a Guinness World Record that has never been approached since. She went back to work as an elevator operator five months later.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"display:flex;justify-content:center;margin:2em 0\"><blockquote class=\"reddit-embed-bq\" data-embed-height=\"500\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/todayilearned\/comments\/clntl8\/til_that_in_1945_a_us_army_air_force_b25_bomber\/\">TIL that in 1945 a US Army Air Force B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.reddit.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Building That Shrugged<\/h2>\n<p>The New York Fire Department fought the blaze 935 feet above the street &mdash; the highest structural fire ever brought under control at that time &mdash; and had it out in forty minutes. The Empire State Building&rsquo;s steel frame swallowed the ten-ton impact without a groan; engineers found no structural damage beyond the gash. Many floors reopened for business on Monday morning, less than 48 hours later.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;A fog-blind B-25 Mitchell bomber, groping its way southward across Manhattan to Newark Airport, crashed into the 79th-floor of the 1,250-foot Empire State Building&hellip; turning the world&rsquo;s tallest building into a torch in the sky high above 34th St. and Fifth Avenue.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>New York Daily News<\/strong> &mdash; Front page, 29 July 1945<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>The disaster&rsquo;s longest shadow fell on the law books: because the government initially could not be sued, Congress passed the Federal Tort Claims Act in 1946 &mdash; with retroactive provisions shaped by this very crash &mdash; finally letting citizens seek damages from the United States. And sixteen years before anyone drew plans for the World Trade Center, New York had learned that its greatest skyscraper could take a direct hit from a bomber and stand.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=904486056  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/b-25-mitchell-in-flight-1941.jpg\" alt=\"North American B-25 Mitchell in flight\" style=\"display:block;width:100%;height:auto\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A B-25 Mitchell of the type that hit the tower &mdash; ten tons, two 1,700-horsepower engines, and utterly blind in fog. Photo: US Army Air Forces<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=1950063078411792647&theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:400px;border:none;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p>The History Guy&rsquo;s telling of the crash is the best short documentary on it:<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J8zJEaqXcZ0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p>And the original 1945 newsreel &mdash; the fog, the hole, the crowds on 34th Street:<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PmBian58P9w\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p><em>Sources: NYC Municipal Archives; Guinness World Records; NPR; History.com; Warfare History Network; Britannica; TIME<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What aircraft crashed into the Empire State Building?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>A US Army Air Forces B-25D Mitchell bomber, nicknamed \u201cOld John Feather Merchant,\u201d crashed into the north face of the Empire State Building on Saturday 28 July 1945, at 9:40 a.m. The ten-ton bomber was lost in thick fog at more than 200 miles per hour when it struck the 79th floor.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How did the Empire State Building plane crash happen?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Pilot Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr. was on a routine personnel flight to New York and Newark. Descending in fog so dense the tower could not see the top of the skyscraper, he became disoriented among midtown's towers, skirted the Chrysler Building, banked the wrong way, and flew into the Empire State Building.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How many people died in the Empire State Building crash?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Fourteen people were killed \u2014 the three crew aboard the bomber and eleven people in the building, mostly in the offices of a wartime Catholic war-relief agency \u2014 and about two dozen more were injured. The impact tore a roughly 20-foot hole in the building.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who was Betty Lou Oliver?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Betty Lou Oliver was a 20-year-old elevator operator who survived the crash and then plunged 75 storeys when her elevator cables, weakened by the impact, gave way. She survived the fall \u2014 still recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest survived elevator fall in history.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Did the Empire State Building survive the B-25 crash?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Yes. Despite the fire and a 20-foot hole, the skyscraper's steel-framed structure held, and the building was open for business two days later. The incident became a landmark case in aviation safety and building resilience, part of the long <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/military-aviation-history-zeppelin-to-sixth-generation\/\">history of military aviation<\/a> shaping how cities manage aircraft risk.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Has an aircraft hit a skyscraper before?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The 1945 B-25 strike on the Empire State Building was the most famous early case of an aircraft hitting a skyscraper, occurring in an era before modern radar guidance and air-traffic control. It is remembered both as a wartime tragedy and, like fallen aviators honoured by the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/missing-man-formation-aviation-farewell-tribute\/\">missing man formation<\/a>, as a solemn chapter in aviation history.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What aircraft crashed into the Empire State Building?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"A US Army Air Forces B-25D Mitchell bomber, nicknamed \u201cOld John Feather Merchant,\u201d crashed into the north face of the Empire State Building on Saturday 28 July 1945, at 9:40 a.m. The ten-ton bomber was lost in thick fog at more than 200 miles per hour when it struck the 79th floor.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How did the Empire State Building plane crash happen?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Pilot Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr. was on a routine personnel flight to New York and Newark. Descending in fog so dense the tower could not see the top of the skyscraper, he became disoriented among midtown's towers, skirted the Chrysler Building, banked the wrong way, and flew into the Empire State Building.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How many people died in the Empire State Building crash?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Fourteen people were killed \u2014 the three crew aboard the bomber and eleven people in the building, mostly in the offices of a wartime Catholic war-relief agency \u2014 and about two dozen more were injured. The impact tore a roughly 20-foot hole in the building.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Who was Betty Lou Oliver?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Betty Lou Oliver was a 20-year-old elevator operator who survived the crash and then plunged 75 storeys when her elevator cables, weakened by the impact, gave way. 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The incident became a landmark case in aviation safety and building resilience, part of the long <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/military-aviation-history-zeppelin-to-sixth-generation\/\\\">history of military aviation<\/a> shaping how cities manage aircraft risk.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Has an aircraft hit a skyscraper before?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The 1945 B-25 strike on the Empire State Building was the most famous early case of an aircraft hitting a skyscraper, occurring in an era before modern radar guidance and air-traffic control. It is remembered both as a wartime tragedy and, like fallen aviators honoured by the <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/missing-man-formation-aviation-farewell-tribute\/\\\">missing man formation<\/a>, as a solemn chapter in aviation history.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/f-16-intercept-civilian-plane-maryland-tfr-2026\/\">Wrong Airspace Over Maryland, Meet an F-16<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/the-pilot-who-landed-on-a-manhattan-street-twice\/\">The Pilot Who Landed on a Manhattan Street &mdash; Twice<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/headless-b-17-flying-fortress-88mm-shell\/\">Headless B-17: The Fortress That Refused to Fall<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July 1945 a fog-blind B-25 bomber hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor &#8211; and elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a 75-storey fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":3547538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3548644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Bomber That Hit the Empire State | MiGFlug.com Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In July 1945 a fog-blind B-25 bomber hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor - and elevator operator Betty Lou 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