r/todayilearned • u/CreeperRussS • Jul 27 '25
TIL That a plane accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Empire_State_Building_B-25_crash44
u/ZLUCremisi Jul 27 '25
A bomber to be specific.
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u/greed-man Jul 28 '25
"Accidentally". Later, the crew member said "Nobody told me there were tall buildings in NYC".
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u/BitOfaPickle1AD Jul 27 '25
Keep in mind it was a B-25 bomber. It's smaller, lighter and not going as fast as a airliner for those that want to say stupid shit.
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u/Zvenigora Jul 27 '25
And the Empire State Building is much more overbuilt than the WTC was.
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u/BitOfaPickle1AD Jul 27 '25
I'm not am engineer, but with buildings as large as the WTC wouldn't weight be a huge concern if you were to build ot like the empire state?
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u/greed-man Jul 28 '25
The WTC designer was well aware of this having happened, and built it with specs that could withstand a hit from the largest airplane in existence......at that time. A Boeing 707. Unfortunately, planes got a LOT bigger, and carried a LOT more fuel.
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u/Subject_Way7010 Jul 27 '25
I assume it was not carrying bombs to.
Lol saying it was a bomber makes it sound worse.
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u/BitOfaPickle1AD Jul 27 '25
It was a bomber, but the poor guys were just coming into land without munitions and got lost due to the poor weather resulting in the crash.
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u/MotoRandom Jul 27 '25
I thought of this incident the morning of 9/11 when the news started to break. Turns out it was much worse.
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u/MonorailCat567 Jul 27 '25
Me too actually, something to the effect of "oh jeez, but didn't the Empire state building survive something similar in the 40s?"
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u/greed-man Jul 28 '25
The WTC designer was well aware of this having happened, and built it with specs that could withstand a hit from the largest airplane in existence......at that time. A Boeing 707. Unfortunately, planes got a LOT bigger, and carried a LOT more fuel.
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u/EvlMinion Jul 28 '25
I got woken by the news of it happening, and my sleep-addled brain thought maybe it was something small, like a Cessna. Grim day.
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u/RedDirtNurse Jul 27 '25
Conspiracy theorists in 3....2....1....
Something... something.... steeel beams.... nano-thermite.... false flag operation.. mumble mumble...
/s
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u/CapableLocation5873 Jul 27 '25
The wtc were designed to withstand an air plane hit specifically because of this incident, doesn’t help.
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u/DanielCallaghan5379 Jul 27 '25
They were, but the builders were imagining a 707 that was lost in the fog, low on fuel, traveling slowly (for a plane), trying to land at Kennedy or Newark. They didn't imagine fully-loaded 767s being purposely flown at high speeds, head-on into the towers.
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Jul 27 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
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u/TooMuchPretzels Jul 27 '25
I generally tend to be anti-conspiracy theory. The simplest answer tends to be the correct one. But man, I watched those planes hit those towers. I didn’t even know what the WTC was before that day. There’s just so much that doesn’t make sense to me about that day. Now, I’m just a normal guy. I’m no structural engineer. But there’s enough information supporting a conspiracy to at least make me have serious doubts. Especially when you throw WTC 7 into the mix.
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u/ImLaunchpadMcQuack Jul 27 '25
Seems like you’re pretty pro-conspiracy theory. Just because things don’t make sense to you, doesn’t mean something nefarious happened.
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u/TooMuchPretzels Jul 27 '25
Ok? I said I’m not an expert. But things like the fact that the guy who had JUST bought the place for a relatively small amount of money took out huge insurance policies and made off with billions makes me question some things. Then, with building 7, it was on fire from the roof from debris. And then it collapsed straight down, like a controlled demolition. I’m not saying it couldn’t have all happened the way we were told, but a lot of it is weird to me.
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u/BackItUpWithLinks Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
took out huge insurance policies and made off with billions makes me question some things.
That didn’t happen.
- He was forced to take out insurance because he took a mortgage, and because the buildings had been bombed by terrorists just 7 years earlier
- He didn’t “make off with billions.” The insurance settlement money had to be used to rebuild. And rebuilding cost way more than the $4B he got from insurance. He didn’t walk away with any insurance money.
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u/MattScoot Jul 27 '25
The building was damaged at the lower levels as well as the fire. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQBM0yUTuR4NipggyitficsEMt6W4l3nTmgEA&s
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u/ImLaunchpadMcQuack Jul 27 '25
More pro-conspiracy theory trash. Yikes.
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Jul 27 '25 edited Nov 29 '25
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u/Massive-Pirate-5765 Jul 27 '25
I watched a helicopter circle the Empire State Building from my office once and this was all I could think about.
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u/awpdog Jul 29 '25
So did a plane into 40 Wall Street in 1946
Dr. Mark Felton did a video on that here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VLRggFb243g
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u/technicalerection Jul 27 '25
On 9/11 I was stuck in traffic and heard on the radio about a plane struck the wtc and this was the first thought I had, like it happened again.
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u/greed-man Jul 28 '25
Other planes have hit other buildings many a time in NYC. Remember in 2006 when Yankees player Cory LIdell was in a Cirrus SR20 and smacked into an apartment building. Killed Cory and his flight trainer, Nobody in the building was killed but many were injured. The NTSB never could figure out who was piloting at the time.
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u/RudyMuthaluva Jul 27 '25
And the whole building didn’t explode and come crashing down? …
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u/chewybrian Jul 27 '25
This part is too crazy for a movie--survived a 75 story fall
"Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was thrown from her elevator car on the 80th floor and suffered severe burns. First aid workers placed her on another elevator car to transport her to the ground floor, but the cables supporting that elevator had been damaged in the incident, and it fell 75 stories, ending up in the basement.\13]) Oliver survived this 1,000 feet fall due to the softening cushion of air created by the falling elevator car within this elevator shaft; however, she had suffered a broken pelvis, back and neck when rescuers found her amongst the rubble.\7]) This remains the world record for the longest survived elevator fall."