BBC News | EUROPE | History of skyscraper incidents

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Thursday, 18 April, 2002, 19:31 GMT 20:31 UK

History of skyscraper incidents

Europe's tallest building - Moscow's Ostankino - caught fire in 2000

A small aircraft has hit the 30-storey skyscraper known as the Pirelli Tower in the northern Italian city of Milan.

The sight of black smoke pouring from a towering office block was an immediate reminder of the horrific moments when two hijacked planes plunged into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York seven months earlier.

It is also the latest in a series of tragedies and near disasters in the world's tallest buildings this decade, although non of these were near the scale of the 11 September attacks.

5 January 2002
Wreckage of the Cessna flown by Charles Bishop into a Florida skyscraper

Fifteen-year-old student pilot Charles Bishop flies a stolen single-engine Cessna into the 20th floor of the Bank of America building in Tampa, Florida. Bishop kills himself and slightly damages the skyscraper.

An apparent suicide note in his pocket "expressed sympathy" with the events of 11 September, police said.

11 September 2001
Hijackers fly two planes into the 417-metre (1,400-foot) twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Both buildings collapse, killing at least 2,800 people.

28 August 2000
Four people are killed when fire breaks out in Moscow's Ostankino TV tower, Europe's tallest structure, crippling television broadcasts across Russia.

2 August 2000
A fire breaks out on the 13th floor of Hong Kong's immigration headquarters, injuring 47. The Hong Kong authorities say the building has been firebombed by mainland Chinese protesters demanding the right to live in Hong Kong - some of whom set themselves alight.

23 February 1997
Three people die in a fire in Bangkok's President Tower, a 36-floor complex on Ploenchit Road, including a hotel, shopping plaza and office building. The seventh to tenth floors are destroyed.

8 December 1997
At least 14 people die in a fire which engulfs the top floors of the 25-storey Bank Indonesia building in Jakarta only a month after it opened.

21 November 1996
Forty people are killed and 81 injured when the worst blaze on record in Hong Kong breaks out in the 16-story Garley Building on the tourist shopping street Nathan Road. People are seen leaping from windows to escape the flames.

17 January 1996
London's NatWest Tower, the tallest office block in the city's financial centre, catches fire while workers are repairing bomb damage sustained during a 1993 Irish Republican Army bomb attack on the area. No one is injured, although 500 people are evacuated as smoke billows from the 183-metre (600-foot) building.

23 November 1995
Hundreds are evacuated from New York's Empire State Building when a fire in the basement fills the skyscraper with smoke. More than 40 fire engines arrive on the scene to control the blaze, which is believed to have started from an electrical short circuit.

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