HIT BY BOMBER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 30 July 1945, Page 5

HIT BY BOMBER

NEW YORK SKYSCRAPER SEVERAL PEOPLE KILLED New York, July 28 A twin-engined aeroplane crashed | into the Empire State Building, one ol ; the highest skyscrapers, and filled cor- < ridors with blazing petrol. Police stated j that the flames, which enveloped the entire top of the building, also spread ( to other buildings. Eye-witnesses des- : cribed how the aeroplane. a B-25j bomber, crashed with a terrific explosion. and how flaming petrol and | debris came crashing down into busy Thirty-fourth street. One of the, plane’s wings shot off toward Madison ] Avenue, while the remainder of the ; plane went into the building. Th.-f crash set fire to 11 floors above and 11 beiow the 86th floor. Debris was : scattered as far as five blocks on all ! 6ides of the building Fog enveloped the i building at the time of the crash. When ; this lifted the bomber could be seen j from the street still wedged in the building amid the flames. I*l LOT WARNED The La Guardia Airport control . tower said the plane’s pilot was warned by radio only a few minutes before the ! crash that the Empire State Building j tower could not be seen because of fog, j and that the pilot should fly at a height! of at least 2000 feet over the city. The accident occurred 913 feet above the street. At l«ast 13 persons, including all three occupants of the plane, and 10 office workers were killed. Fifteen we-e injured by the explosion and by the petrol fire which swept four storeys of the building. Horror-stricken occupants of the building, alarmed by the roar of the aporoaching plane’s engines, rushed to the windows, to see the plane loom out of the grey mists. The watchers saw the plane bank steeply. It struck, with terrifying impact, the north side of the building at the 79th floor, ripping a hole 18 feet wide and 20 feet high in the brick walls. The wings sheared oft and fell into the streets. One motor hurtled clear through the building, tore a hole in the south wall and plummeted to the roof of a neighbouring 12-storey bulding. There the engine started a fire which demolished a sculptor’s penthouse' studio. The other motor and part of the landing gear crashed into an elevator shaft end dropped to the basement. One propeller was embedded in the wall of the building. rne plane struck the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council, where between 15 and 20 girls were working Most of them ran terrified toward the doors. Six reached the safety of a fireproof stair well. Several were overtaken by the raging flames and burned to death. Three who sought the shelter of a separate office on the south side of the building were followed and killed there by the flames. The publicity representative for the council jumped from a window to escape the flames struck a ledge on the sev-enty-second floor and was killed instantly. Tne bodies of the plane’s occupants were hurled into the inferno. Wreckage from the plane damaged some lift cables and two cars plunged to the basement One was empty and the other dropped from the seventyfifth floor with two women occupants, who were badly injured. An automatic device apparently slowed the car sufficiently to save their lives. Firemen were forced to carry a hose 20 flights to fight the flames which were extinguished in 40 minutes.

A volunteer rescue worker. 17-yerai-old Coastguardsman D Molony, helped to save a dozen lives. Molony a student pharmacist’s mate, saw the crash* from the street ran into a chemist’s shop, ordered morphine, needles and hypodermic syringes, a first-aid kit and ointments Then he entered the building just as an elevator crashed into the basement. Firemen chopped a hole in the car large enough for Molony to crawl through. A girl lift driver stopped I will be okay now. - " Molony adminsobbed : Thank God the navy's here. 1 will be okay now.” Moloney administered first aid and then climbed 79 floors to the scene of the crash, where he treated the living and helped move the corpses The coastguard have recommended Molony for a decoration. ( FEW IN BUILDING The deaths* would have been . more had not many of the upper stories been unoccupied Most of the offices have reduced staffs on Saturday. It is estimated that 1500 persons were in the bufiding. compared with 5000 tenants ard between 5000 and 10.000 transients on full business days. The damage to the building is estimated at 500.000 dollars. and it is believed that six months will be required for repairs. Experts said no structural damage was caused and most of the damage was done by the fire.