Few buildings are as special and emblematic in New York as the Empire State. After the tragic loss of the Twin Towers, this skyscraper located at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th, Street still standing proudly and elegantly, unscathed even after its construction was completed there in 1931.
And we say "unscathed" because he also suffered the impact of a plane, of a bomber that in 1945, it was about to turn it into a symbol fallen more in the dark regions that write the history of the United States.Do you want to know what is behind this curious history?
I can't even see the Empire State Building!
For almost forty years, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world, until in 1972 the works of the first tower of the World Trade Center .Concretely the North tower.Well, as we can already intuit from our own experience, in times of political and warlike conflicts, it is common for all emblematic construction to run a certain risk.How not to look at the Tempting Empire State Building in the middle of World War II?
There were many times when some kind of attack was feared since the country decided to take part in the course of the conflict, but the war in Europe is almost It ended on July 28, 1945, when Japan would not take too long to give up...so how to suddenly expect such an attack on the Empire State Building ?
Well, the truth is that it was not really an attack, but a strange joke of fate that awaited a distinguished war hero, those casual things that one can never expect and that usually hides fatality with its artisans and capricious threads. pr This story's otagonist was Bill Smith , a combat hero and lieutenant colonel that morning, piloted his precious B-25 bomber, to accomplish a very simple mission: he had only to direct the imposing twin-engine from South Dakota to New Jersey.
When Smith had been flying for an hour, he received a message from the Queens airport telling him of a dense and unusual fog. It was a risk.All Manhattan It was covered, you could hardly see anything, so they indicated that it was best to land before arriving on the island.And what did our lieutenant colonel do? I think it was best to simply descend about 2000 meters to better see what I had before him.And was that a good tactic? At all, when he wanted to realize it, he was already on Fifth Avenue with 42nd Street...
It is said that before starting a fatal maneuver to avoid what he had before him, he told the controllers: "The fog is very thick, I can't even see the Empire State Building!"
I had it in front of it, and the impact was fatal.
A attack on the Empire State Building?
At Lifestyle we don't like to make false assumptions but that's the first thing the population thought when they saw a fire on top of the Empire State Building.The sky in New York was intense columns of smoke and many feared since that was a new attack similar to that suffered in Pearl Harbor.Nothing even knew of that B-25 and Bill Smith, that lieutenant colonel who crashed his plane at 320 km/h destroying plants 78 and 79 immediately.
The Fuel lit the fuse a few seconds raising its tongues of fire to other plants, while one of the engines fell through the elevator shaft to the basement burning 7 walls to fall to 33rd Street.But most importantly, how many losses? human were there? Fortunately, the incident did not cause as many deaths as feared in the beginning, there were 14 victims and 26 seriously injured.
As a curious fact related to this Empire State accident, we must to talk to you about a woman, about a lucky lady called Betty Lou Oliver .She fell from the elevator shaft at the moment of impact, an abysmal fall along 330 meters nothing more and nothing less.today, Betty Lou continues to hold the record of the only person who has managed to survive a fall of such height.As you can see, despite the disaster, miracles always arise.
Image: Pam Morris, Dan Nguyen
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