From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-25_Empire_State_Building_crash
On Saturday, July 28, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith, Jr. was piloting a B-25 Mitchell bomber on a routine personnel transport mission from Boston to LaGuardia Airport. At 9:40 a.m., the plane crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 78th and 80th floors, carving an 18 ft (5.5 m) x 20 ft (6.1 m) hole in the building where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located.
One engine shot through the side opposite the impact and flew as far as the next block where it landed on the roof of a nearby building, starting a fire that destroyed a penthouse. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummeted down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. It is still the only fire at such a height that was ever successfully controlled. Fourteen people were killed in the incident, and elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was injured. After rescuers decided to transport her on an elevator which they did not know had weakened cables, it plunged 75 stories. She survived the plunge, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded.
Despite the damage and loss of life, the building was open for business on many floors on the following Monday. The crash helped spur the passage of the long-pending Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, as well as the insertion of retroactive provisions into the law, allowing people to sue the government for the accident.
Physics behind the impact
http://www.eng.uab.edu/cee/faculty/ndelatte/case_studies_project/Bomber.htm
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