How Dangerous is a Penny Dropped From a Skyscraper?

what would happen if you dropped a penny off the Empire State Building could it kill someone walking on the sidewalk below what does it take to create a deadly projectile oh I'm gonna put this to the test with original mythbuster Adam Savage he's going up in a helicopter to throw pennies at me no one hasn't heard that story when you talk about it people like oh yeah the penny from the Empire State Building and when we went to the Empire State Building every ledge below the observation deck is filled with change I just love the idea of all these people they're not murderers but they're like it's probably not true they're like throwing pennies over the side think it's probably not true a penny weighs around two and a half grams which is about half to a quarter the weight of a bullet if you ignore air resistance a penny dropped from the Empire State Building which is 443 meters to the very top would accelerate to over 300 kilometers per hour by the time it hits the ground that's around half as fast as a typical bullet The MythBusters made Contraptions to shoot pennies at each other Stephen Colbert shot me in the ass with it a few times how did it feel it's a baseball pitcher throwing a penny hard at you yeah it'll stay but they never tried the ultimate test dropping Pennies from the height of the Empire State Building onto someone below and that's what we're gonna do here with Adam that'd be great watching it bounce off your body yeah yeah I say this thinking it's always been my body up till now first one I'll drop the pennies we'll see if we're even gonna land you're going to walk there and I'll throw a second one that's good for you yeah and then you're ready for the the full dump yeah I'm going underneath the helicopter where Adam Savage is gonna drop a whole bunch of pennies on me I know I agreed to do this and I didn't think I'd get hurt but as I'm walking out onto the helicopter I started to think no one has actually done this we planned for pennies falling through still air but the helicopter creates a huge downdraft to support its weight I hear them landing around I start to ...