Why a Plane Crashed into the Empire State Building 70 Years Ago

July 28, 2015 7:00 AM EDT

On this day, July 28, 1945, Lt. Col. William Franklin Smith Jr. flew a B-25 bomber into the 78th floor of the Empire State Building, which was then the tallest building in the world.

It was just before 10:00 on a Saturday morning at the tail end of World War II, and Smith was flying a routine transport mission—giving a handful of servicemen a ride home, according to NPR. He himself was a decorated pilot, fresh from logging 1,000 combat hours in the war, per TIME. He’d earned the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Croix de Guerre as a member of the 457th Bomb Group, where he “hammered at targets in central Germany,” per his obituary in the West Point alumni magazine.

“When Bill entered the Academy in July of 1938 he stood on the threshold of a brief but brilliant career as a soldier. To look back on that career we wonder if he knew that his time was short,” his obit concludes. “He wanted to do everything in a military manner, but fast and well.”

That sense of urgency may explain why, 70 years ago today, the 27-year-old pilot ignored an air traffic controller’s warning of low visibility en route from LaGuardia to Newark.

“We’re unable to see the top of the Empire State Building,” the controller told him, according to TIME’s 1945 report. Smith flew anyway.

In the dense fog, he maneuvered through Manhattan at about 225 m.p.h., narrowly missing a skyscraper on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street before he pulled up and banked slightly left—and collided head-on with the Empire State Building.

“The bomber gored through the thick steel and stone of the building as if they were papier-mâché,” TIME reported. “Then, in a flash of flame, the gasoline tanks exploded. In another instant flames leaped and seeped inside & outside the building.”

Smith and his two passengers were killed instantly; 11 people in the building also died. Most of the victims, per TIME, were “women employed by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, which has offices on the 79th floor. Many were burned beyond recognition.”

Some survived against the odds—including a 19-year-old elevator operator who broke her pelvis, back and neck when the plane sliced through the elevator’s cables and she plummeted from the 79th floor to the subbasement, per NPR.

Decades later, it’s hard not to read about this history without thinking of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001—but the skyscraper and the plane weren’t the only components these two events shared. The disaster also prompted adrenaline-fueled acts of heroism reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of those that prevailed after 9/11. To free the badly-injured young woman from the basement elevator, first responders battered a hole through the wreckage. One courageous volunteer tunneled through it to reach her. Per TIME:

Donald Malony, 17, a Coast Guard hospital apprentice, squeezed through it, brought her out, gave her morphine. Passing the building at the moment of the crash, he had run into a drug store, talked a clerk into giving him hypodermic needles, drugs, other supplies. He gave first aid to many.

Read more from 1945: New York: In the Clouds

The Chrysler Building Under Construction

High-angle view of a worker sitting on a steel girder high atop the Chrysler Building, on the 54th floor, during its construction, New York City, 1929. — Aworker sitting on a steel girder high atop the Chrysler Building, on the 54th floor, during its construction, New York City, 1929.Museum of the City of New York/Byron Collection—Getty Images

Viewed from across the East River, midtown Manhattan is growing ever taller. The building in the center of the photograph is the new Chrysler Building which, when completed, will be the tallest building in the world (until 11 months later, when the Empire State Building will claim that distinction). — Viewed from across the East River in 1929, midtown Manhattan is growing ever taller. The building in the center of the photograph is the Chrysler Building which, when completed, will be the tallest building in the worldUnderwood Archives—Getty Images

A group of construction workers assemble steel beams during the erection of the Chrysler Building, New York City, 1929.Charles Rivers/Museum of the City of New York—Getty Images

View of the tower of the Chrysler Building under construction, New York City. Designed by William Van Alen, 1929. — View of the tower of the Chrysler Building under construction, New York City in 1929.Edwin Levick—Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The sharp, glistening spire of the Chrysler Building stands revealed as the world's tallest building sheds its scaffolding, May 26, 1930. AP Photo

View of Midtown Manhattan looking west along 42nd Street with the Chrysler Building, 1930.Frederic Lewis—Getty Images

The lobby of the Chrysler Building (1930, William van Alen, architect) and its clock, two doors, and two Christmas trees with strings of light, the wall is red Moroccan marble, New York, mid 20th Century. — The lobby of the Chrysler Building (1930, William van Alen, architect) and its clock, two doors, and two Christmas trees with strings of light, New York, mid 20th Century. FPG—Getty Images

A gargoyle atop the Chrysler Building watches vigilantly over the rising Gotham towers of midtown Manhattan.AP Photo

With the Chrysler Building to his left, a steel worker rests on a girder at the 86th floor of the new Empire State Building during construction in New York City, Sept. 24, 1930. AP Photo

When an Army Plane Crashed Into the Empire State Building

The Chrysler Building Under Construction

More Must-Reads From TIME