The View from the 79th Floor

Eighty years ago, on July 28, 1945, an Army bomber pilot on a routine ferry mission found himself lost in the fog over Manhattan. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound of the plane as it hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor. Fourteen people were killed. Debris from the plane severed the cables of an elevator, which fell 79 stories with a young woman inside. She survived. The crash prompted new legislation that—for the first time—gave citizens the right to sue the federal government. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You can listen to The View from the 79th Floor online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The View from the 79th Floor is an episode from Radio Diaries by Radio Diaries & Radiotopia.

This episode is 16:30 long.

This episode was published on Jul 28, 2025.

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