13 dead in B-25 crash into Empire State Building
Hundreds trapped in flaming structure 1,000 feet from street
NEW YORK (UP, July 28) – A B-25 Billy Mitchell bomber rammed into the 78th story of the Empire State Building at 9:52 a.m. today.
The plane exploded in a cone of flames that turned the world’s tallest skyscraper into a pillar of horror and brought death to at least 13 persons and injury to 25 more. All victims were believed from the New York area.
It was the most spectacular disaster to strike the New York area since the burning of the zeppelin Hindenburg.
A searing envelope of gasoline flames shrouded 10 stories of the spire-like tower of the 1,250-foot Empire State Building.
Hundreds trapped
It trapped hundreds of persons within flame and gas-filled rooms more than 1,000 feet above the street.
Three elevators plunged out of control from the 80th floor to the basement.
Broken glass and debris rained down over several square blocks. Half an hour after the explosion particles still sifted down.
So tremendous was the explosion, it ripped away the fog which had hidden the topmost stories of the skyscraper from the vision of the B-25 pilot.
Flames fill sky
For two minutes the pinnacle of the chromium-girt Empire State stood out sharp and clear in the drizzle while orange-red flames licked around.
Then the soft fog closed in again to hide the scene from the horrified sight of thousands of Midtown office workers who had rushed to windows at the sound of the explosion which echoed over Central Manhattan like a blockbuster.
Inside the 102-story building there was pandemonium.
The plane was en route to Newark, New Jersey, from New Bedford, on the final lap of a cross-country flight which started at Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
It was piloted by Lt. Col. William F. Smith Jr., 27, of Watertown, Massachusetts. He and his crew member, Sgt. Christopher S. Domitrovich, 31, of Granite City, Illinois, were instantly killed. Col. Smith recently returned from overseas.
A Navy chief petty officer riding in the plane as a passenger was also killed. He was not identified immediately.
Heads for skyscraper
The plane had inquired of LaGuardia Field by radio a few minutes before for instructions on landing conditions at Newark.
Suddenly scattered observers near the Empire State Tower heard the deep-throated roar of its motors. It was fiving in the overcast at about 1,000 feet and headed straight for the fog-hidden skyscraper.
A moment later it struck the north side of the building, between the 78th and 79th floors, penetrating with such force that one motor drove straight through the building and landed on the roof of the 12-story Waldorf Building adjoining it on 33rd Street.
Only the fact that the disaster occurred on a Saturday morning when many Empire State offices are closed kept down the toll of dead and injured.
Casualties among pedestrians outside the building were small because Midtown streets are not crowded on Saturdays as they are during the week, and rain and drizzle held down the number out of doors.
The B-25 was believed to have carried its normal crew of five, all of whom were instantly killed.
The force of the impact and explosion was such that many of the bodies were blown to bits.
Relatives visit morgue
The charred and broken bodies of the victims lay in Bellevue Hospital morgue tonight. Sheets shrouded them from the eyes of relatives.
They were the victims of the crash of a B-25 bomber into the Empire State Building.
Identification through appearance was impossible and not permitted. Relatives going to the morgue were shown only a handful of jewelry, a dental plate and three keys.
From these, Vincent M. Sozzi of New York identified an inscribed bracelet belonging to his sister, Jean Sozzi, 40, of Brooklyn. She was a stenographer at the War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Council.
Ring identified
From an inscribed engagement ring, Raymond Cavanaugh of Union City, New Jersey, identified his sister.
Margaret Mullen, 33, of Hoboken, New Jersey, a bookkeeper in the Catholic office.
There was a link bracelet on a watch, numbered 930-79-620, not yet identified. There was a dental plate, its teeth burned away, which police hoped to trace.
There were the keys – one of which was inscribed “Penn 648,” which might hold a clue.
Eight of the victims were believed to be women.
One floor unoccupied
The 78th floor office where the plane struck was not occupied. But the 79th floor office, just above, was occupied by the National Catholic Welfare Council. Some 40 persons normally worked on this floor, about 25 of them in the Catholic Welfare offices. Many were absent due to Saturday holidays.
The most severe casualties were in the Catholic Welfare offices. Nine bodies were reported found on the 79th floor.
Three were found in two of the smashed elevators in the basement. The third elevator was empty.
Archbishop Francis J. Spellman described the disaster as a “new and terrifying sorrow” and said the Catholic workers who were killed had “dedicated, consecrated and sacrificed their lives to humanity.”
Special prayers
Special prayers will be offered in all churches of the archdiocese Sunday for the victims.
A service of Holy Sacrifice will be offered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral tomorrow and, on Wednesday, the Archbishop will preside at a solemn pontifical mass of requiem.
The worst damage was on the six floors from the 78th to the 84th story. Windows were blown from every frame and the plaster turned to dust. Much of the furnishings had vanished in the searing gasoline flames.
The marble tiling along the walls of one section of the 79th floor had been blown off. One of the plane’s engines caromed off and plunged into an elevator, killing an elevator girl and dropping down the shaft.
The plane’s cowling and part of its propeller were imbedded in the walls. Steel girders of the wrecked floors were twisted like jackstraws by the blast.
Rescue workers, knee deep in mortar, bricks and bomber fragments, saw a small card, its edges charred. It said: “Do not remove from Plane No. 577.”
There were 35 persons on the 86th floor observation platform when the plane hit. They had paid $1 to “see the sights of New York from the Empire State Tower.”
Louis Petley, 54, the guide, was apologizing for the fog which spoiled their view when disaster struck.
“I never heard anything like it in my life,” Petley said. “I jumped three feet in the air. I saw a flash of flame envelope the tower.”
Herded to safety
With difficulty, Petley managed to herd his horror-stricken sightseers down a stairway to the 65th floor where they took an elevator to the lobby.
“I wanted to keep them in the lobby for a minute,” he said, “but they all ran out, saying ‘We want to get out of here.’”
Survivors on the 78th and 79th floors were almost too dazed to tell what had happened. Most of them were burned or had been cut by splinters of glass.
Jumps to escape
Paul Deering, 40, publicity representative of the Catholic Welfare Council, jumped from an 86th floor window to escape the flames. His body landed on the 72nd floor parapet.
An elevator girl had just halted her cage on the 75th floor. The blast blew her out of the elevator and all the way across the hall.
The impact of the plane and its explosion tore a gaping 15-foot hole on the north side of the building. The plane hit just below the ceiling of the 78th floor, doing almost equal damage to the 78th and 79th stories.
On the south side of the building, there was a smaller hole, caused by the engine which plummeted through the building.
Management consultant James W. Irwin was sitting alone in his office on the 75th floor shortly before 10 a.m.
Outside the tower was shrouded in fog. Suddenly he heard the roar of an airplane which seemed to be coming directly his way.
Ran into hall
“I ran into the hall as the roar increased,” he said. “Just as I hit the hall the plane struck.
Mr. Irwin reported that the first firemen reached him on the 75th floor at 10:35. A four-alarm fire alarm had been turned in the moment the plane hit.
But rescue efforts were impeded by the damage which knocked out the elevators. It takes time to climb 75 to 80 flights of stairs.
Mayor F. H. LaGuardia inspected the scene about two hours after the crash. He walked over the rubbled 79th floor where rescue workers were piling together the bits and pieces of what had been busy office workers and stenographers.
‘Flying too low’
“It was just an oven,” he commented and pointed out that the plane “was flying too low.” There is a city regulation against flying below 5,000 feet over Manhattan.
However, the plane had left New Bedford, Massachusetts, to fly by “contact,” meaning that the pilot was flying by visual contact with the ground. It was bound for Newark, New Jersey.
When it approached Manhattan, it contacted LaGuardia Field which advised that the ceiling over Manhattan at that time was 1,100 feet which meant that the top 150 feet of the Empire State was shrouded by mist and fog.
‘Going to Newark’
The pilot of the bomber, contacting the LaGuardia Control Tower, was reported to have said: “I am going to Newark. Will you give me the weather there?”
The Tower told the pilot to maintain contact flying, meaning 1,000-foot visibility and three-mile visibility forward.
“At the present time,” the Tower told the pilot, “I cannot see the top of the Empire State Building.”
The Control Tower operators, it was said, ordinarily used the Empire State tower as a gauge for visibility. The pilot was instructed that if he could not maintain contact flying, he should return to LaGuardia Field.
Thousands gather
Thousands of persons congregated around the Empire State Building to watch the rescue work.
Four fire alarms brought the largest amount of firefighting apparatus ever assembled in New York City to the scene.
Scores of physicians, firemen, priests and nurses tramped the stairways of the upper floors where elevator service had been blasted out by the explosion.
The Empire State Building has a normal population of about 5,500 office workers and building employees. Today it was believed not more than 1,500 were in the building.
Tower to be closed
Gen. Hugh A. Drum, chairman of Empire State, Inc. declared 10 hours after the accident that engineers had inspected the building and found “no structural damage.”
He said that most of the damage, an estimate of which is in preparation, resulted from the burning airplane gas “and the passage of parts of the plane through the building.”
Gen. Drum said the tower of the building would be closed indefinitely to visitors, but service was uninterrupted on the first 67 floors, and would be reinstated upwards “in the near future.”
Members of the Public Relations Office of the building said the damage was believed to approximate $250,000. The building is valued at $30 million.