Auteur: pdbfoto

The damage on the building was caused by a B-25 bomber crashing into 79th floor.
The bomber was flown by the highly decorated pilot William Smith, who had just arrived home from Europe. Here he had flown 34 successful combat missions and was on his way to the pacific theater. But on that morning the skies over Manhattan were filled with a heavy fog and when Smith noticed the Empire State Building in front of his plane it was already too late. On impact flames shot as high as the observation deck on 86th floor.
The three men crewing the plane lost their lives along with 11 people in the building.
On that day twenty year old Betty Lou Oliver was doing her very last shift as an elevator operator. She was on the 80th floor when the plane hit the building and shortly after the elevator began plummeting The elevator fell more than 1000 feet until it crashed into the floor of the buildings subbasement. By a miracle Oliver survived the crash, she went onto have three children and live till she was 74 in 1999.