How a woman survived a 75-floor elevator fall after a plane crashed into the Empire State Building

The September 11, 2001, tragedy of the Twin Towers in New York City was not the first time a plane crashed into a New York skyscraper: a previous incident in 1945 was tragic and miraculous at the same time.

On July 28th of that year, William F. Smith, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces, was trying to land his B-25 bomber at Newark airport w…