[vesiasmepay]

Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle confirmed on plane according to CW11...

[addyta.org]

Oh my god.

[Smeaphvalialm]

antinimby, what's with the humorous user ranks of late?

[StizePypemype]

What are you talking about?

I'm shaken right now being a Yankee fan. There is no humor.

Let's not get off the topic...please.

[marcusdexz]

Yankee Cory Lidle on NYC plane; 4 killed

AP - 3 minutes ago
NEW YORK - A small plane with New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle aboard crashed into a 50-story condominium tower Wednesday on Manhattan's Upper East Side, killing at least four people and raining flaming debris on sidewalks, authorities said.

[Filmania]

Very sad news. Cory Lidle seemed to be a genuinely good guy, he also came up through the Mets organization and as a sports fan this is a big loss. There are no positives in this but atleast people won't now jump to conclusions and label this as an act of terrorism. Sad loss indeed.

[scoundtrack]

Yankee Dies in Plane Crash, Official Says




Cory Lidle was killed in the crash at the Belaire building today.


By MARIA NEWMAN and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: October 11, 2006

Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the New York Yankees, was killed today when his small private plane crashed into a residential high-rise building on New York City’s Upper East Side, igniting several apartments before pieces of the aircraft crashed to the ground, a high ranking city official confirmed late this afternoon.

Police said two bodies were found on the ground shortly after the crash, one of them that of Mr. Lidle, who was a licensed pilot. The plane was registered to Mr. Lidle.

The aircraft struck at about the 40th or 41st floors of the the building, at 524 E. 72nd St., near York Avenue, known as the Belaire. That building and one next door were evacuated, police said. Flames shot out of the building and smoke streamed up into the sky, visible for miles. By 4 p.m., fire officials said the fire was brought under control.

The plane was flying under visual flight rules and was not in contact with air traffic controllers, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it would send a team of investigators from Washington this evening, to take charge of the investigation. One of the five members of the board, Deborah A.P. Hersman, was accompanying the team, which was flying on a government plane from Washington.

The explosion after the crash, and the ensuing fire, interrupted the routine of the bustling East Side neighborhood. The condominium building, known as the Belaire, has 50 floors, with several of the bottom floors housing offices for doctors and other professionals, with residences upstairs. The building is surrounded by several hospitals and medical offices.

Kim Quarterman, 50, a doorman at 411 E. 70th St., said he heard a noise about 2:45 p.m.

“It sounded like a truck gearing down,” he said. “You know how a truck sounds when it’s trying not to hit something? Then I saw a cloud of smoke.”
After that, he picked up his daughter, Chablis Quarterman, 13, at a nearby school.

“My dad and I tried to get as close as we could, but by then, all you could see was smoke,” she said.

Several witnesses said that the plane was flying lower than normal, and then that it turned suddenly, towards the building.

Rob Miranda, a carpenter, had been working on a renovation project on the 46th floor. He and the architect had just finished lunch when they saw an airplane approaching the building. It hit the Belaire on the north side. It had been wobbling, they said, and at first, they thought it was a stunt plane.

“He was out of control,” Mr. Miranda said. “He was on an incline, accelerating as he passed. Then he hooked around the corner, he hit the north side of the building, and you heard a tremendous explosion.”

He said he and the other workers ran, checking the 38th and 39th floors for any people who needed to get out. As smoke quickly began filling up the rooms, they took the elevators down.

Another contractor with a roofing company, Arturo Waulk, was working nearby when he saw the aircraft.

“It was a small plane and it was wobbling, and then all of a sudden it was buried in a building and fires were blowing all around,” he said.

At the Belaire, two men Leonard Cutillo and George Acosta, were waiting to see their doctor. Mr. Cutillo, who was leaning on a cane, had tears in his eyes and was shaking as he recounted what had happened.

“We’re sitting in the building, and we heard this tremendous noise and everything starts blowing out — glass, smoke, flames — and we just got out of there as quick as we could,” Mr. Cutillo said.

Laura Stern, who lives on the 27th floor of 515 East 79th Street, said she was in her living room, which has an unobstructed southern view of the Belaire.

“I saw huge flames shooting out of the Bel Air,” she said at about 4 p.m. “I didn’t see the impact but it’s huge. I can see it now — black smoke. There’s still flames they haven’t put out.

“But it doesn’t look like it’s affected more than two stories.”

Alexa Lagnori, who lives across the street from the Belaire, at 525 E. 72d, was in her apartment when the plane struck.

“I saw the fire and it seemed to be pouring out of five to 10 floors below,” she said.

She said firefighters responded quickly to put out the fire and comb over debris from the plane littering the ground. She got out of the building with her dog, Akira, through a back door.

“It looked as if something had hit the building very hard,” she said . “I thought at first it was a black plane, but it may have just been the smoke. It was frightening how much fire it caused.”

Samuel Klotman, 17, was on the roof of his school nearby with classmates when they saw the plane coming down.

“I could see through the buildings what I thought was a plane headed to this building,” he said. “Then there was a booming noise and a great fire gust shooting out.”

He said he and his classmates started text messaging and calling everyone they knew, “wondering what was happening,” and the school let everybody go home.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[ZIZITOPER]

As a Yankee fan this is very sad. I was in Baltimore in early September and was in the outfield bleechers before game time for BP and Lidle was at the wall and signing autographs and shaking hands. I got to shake his hand. Very nice and personable person and a great family man from what I hear. This is a sad day for this area and Yankee fans, players, organization, and MLB alike. I hope the Yanks do something nice for him at the Stadium. I send Lidle's, and the flight instructors family my sympathies and prayers.

[orillaVar]

Lawmakers urged to resist knee-jerk tighter GA flight rules after New York appartment building crash kills baseball player Cory Lidle

By Justin Wastnage

Lawmakers in the USA have been warned by the general aviation community against imposing stricter flight rules over urban areas in the aftermath of yesterday’s high-profile crash of a Cirrus Design SR20 into a Manhattan apartment building.

The crash, which killed New York Yankees baseball player Cory Lidle who was at the controls, happened at around 14:45 yesterday. The SR20 hit a building next to the East River. It sent the New York Stock Exchange into a brief downward curve amid fears of a repeat of the 11 September 2001 airborne terrorist attacks on the city’s World Trade Center.
Security officials say there was no indication of terrorist activity but fighter jets were scrambled as a precaution yesterday.

Cable news network CNN has released Coast Guard video footage of the impact. Television images in the USA of smoke billowing out of the apartment building, in which two people died, taking the death toll to four including Lidle’s flight instructor, prompted commentators to call for tighter controls of general aviation over urban areas. Lidle took off from New Jersey’s Teterboro Executive airport and flew under visual flight rules (VFR) after leaving the airport’s terminal control area.

Following 9/11 the US Federal Aviation Administration grounded light aircraft take-offs from around the country’s major airports and restricted small aircraft flights despite objections from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Associtaion ( AOPA). Yesterday the FAA issued a temporary flight restriction (TFR) over the accident scene in upper Manhattan. The TFR extended for 1nm (1.85km) around the scene and extends up to 1,500ft (450m) above sea level.

FAA regulations require private pilots to use transponders and to be guided by air traffic controllers in some urban airspace. Flights under VFR are banned above most European cities.

However, AOPA president Phil Boyer says he has been “working with the news media” to help “understand the nature of aviation activity in the New York area and urging them not to rush to judgment without facts”. The association has urged no further restrictions on general aviation in urban areas.

There are around 610,000 private pilots in the USA flying 220,000 aircraft from over 20,000 airports, the majority of which are small.

Adding more security restrictions to general aviation now would hamper the US economy says AOPA. “General aviation aircraft have never been used in an act of terrorism in the world,'' the association adds. "They don't make good terrorism weapons. They are about the size of an [sports utility vehicle] SUV and really cannot do a lot of damage.''

Security consultants have argued that the strengthening of security in smaller airfields is a lesser concern than potential weakness points such as maritime ports.

Air Security International points out that small aircraft do the same damage as heavy ground vehicles, except that airborne collisions are less frequent, thus more dramatic. General aviation aircraft would have too small a payload to carry sufficient explosive to be used by terrorists, the US Transportation Security Administration has concluded.



For exclusive news and expert analysis every week subscribe to Flight International print edition. Included with your subscription are 4 FREE issues and FREE delivery to your home or office.

© Reed Business Information 2006

[vTLWqa1l]

During a recent stay in NYC, a friend of mine from Europe, who's about to enroll at an aviation college, made his first visit to Roosevelt Island, where I took several photos of him with the Belaire towering above his left shoulder. Today, while discussing the accident with him, I encountered a web site entitled "Flying around Manhattan," where the pilot-author makes these observations:

At the north end of Roosevelt Island, the East River dead-ends onto LGA’s air space. I always turn around well south of the Island, where the river is nice and wide. I warn the passengers of the G-forces and usually make a 60°-banked turn (it’s my sadistic streak – 45° is plenty to make the turn – but do brief your passengers on the turn or they’ll freak out). Watch the wind – it’s usually from the west, so a left turn is into the wind. Rarely, winds are from the east, however, and then a right turn makes more sense to keep the radius small. Remember, the turn takes 20 to 30 seconds and a 10 knot wind will displace you by 300 to 450 feet during that turn; that’s significant. Also, slow down before turning. The radius of the turn dramatically increases with speed. Make sure you announce well and look behind you before turning. Do I need to tell you to be proficient in steep turns before venturing into the East River? This is not a place to practice them.
http://netlib.bell-labs.com/who/sape...son/index.htmlNews reports on the day of the accident stated that there was a 12-knot east wind at the time.

[popillio]

That's the most logical reason for this strange and sad story I've yet heard. It seemed having an instructor on board should have helped in an emergency situation.

[Chooriwrocaxz]

^ That's because he wasn't familiar with the area.
He was from California.
Just a set of very unfortunate circumstances coming together.

Here's the New York Times:


Aviator Was Skilled, but in Unfamiliar Skies



Tyler Stanger in his plane at Brackett Field Airport in La Verne, Calif., in 2004.


By SERGE F. KOVALESKI and ALAN FEUER
Published: October 13, 2006

To those who knew him, Tyler Stanger was the real deal: an aviation enthusiast who had hung around a small private airport east of Los Angeles since he was 17 and become both a mechanic and a pilot, an unusual combination.

But Mr. Stanger’s passion for planes did not translate into swagger. As a pilot and a flight instructor, he was cool and meticulous, former students and friends said, a stickler for safety measures like checklists who seemed more mature than his 26 years.

Most of his work was in the wide-open skies of the American West. He and the Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle, also a Californian, had become friends, and that was one of the reasons why Mr. Lidle asked him to come east to help him fly his new single-engine Cirrus SR20 airplane back to California this week.

Still, for all his experience, it appears that Mr. Stanger had flown a loop around Manhattan and up the East River only once, according to a former student. Mr. Stanger took the stretch about two years ago after he purchased a Cessna 172 in the New York area to use for flight instruction.

“He told me that after he bought his plane, he flew the route around the Statue of Liberty and up the river,” recalled the student, Jason Paul, 23.

On Wednesday, he and Mr. Lidle were killed when the pitcher’s plane slammed into a 42-story building on the Upper East Side.

If this was Mr. Stanger’s second time up this section of the East River, then Mr. Stanger was traveling with little experience through a patch of urban air that many veteran New York City pilots say they make a point of avoiding.

They say that pilots try to keep from doing what Mr. Lidle’s plane did: turning left sharply between the east and west banks of the river in an attempt to avoid going into La Guardia Airport airspace.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that the pair had told air traffic controllers they intended to make the left turn and that they were traveling at 112 miles per hour when last glimpsed on radar. The investigators said the plane had gone to 500 feet from 700 feet in roughly a quarter of a mile, but gave no suggestion as to why.

Investigators said they were not even sure who was flying the plane, a sporty four-seater.

Local pilots with experience traveling through New York City’s busy and tricky airspace said that Mr. Lidle’s plane appeared to have followed the rules when he turned left, but that they knew better alternatives: either pilots get clearance from La Guardia, which would not have been a problem on Wednesday; or just skip the East River altogether and go up the Hudson River; or request permission to turn right and make a U-turn that carries them over a sliver of Queens.

One pilot said that he would rather run the risk of receiving a citation by flying without permission through La Guardia airspace than attempt the left turn.

Pilots are allowed to fly without contact with air traffic controllers up the East River to Roosevelt Island’s northern tip in what is known as an “exclusion” devised to keep small craft away from larger craft and to reduce radio traffic with controllers in congested New York. To fly north past the island, a pilot needs to request the clearance from La Guardia.

Without a clearance, however, the pilot must make the 180-degree turn in the confined space above the river banks — a width of about 2,000 feet.
“It’s like a box canyon,” said Ken Nurenberg, who has flown in the New York area for 30 years, but has never flown in a fixed-wing aircraft up the East River. “You go in, but you have to turn around to get out. You’re not allowed off the river and it’s pretty narrow.”

Stanley Anderson, who owns AviateRight, a flight school in Farmingdale, N.Y., has flown the route 50 times, but always with a clearance to continue on from La Guardia. “I would never even try to do a 180,” he said. “No way.”

Mr. Anderson said he did not allow customers to fly the route because, as he put it, “there’s no room for error.” He added that if he even if he did not get clearance from La Guardia, if it was a question of safety, he would probably enter its airspace.

Other pilots said skilled aviators who understand local conditions should be able to handle the turn.

“It’s narrow, but it’s not difficult for somebody who’s aware of where he is and what sort of environment he’s operating in,” said Tom Haines, a pilot and the editor in chief of AOPA Pilot Magazine. “It’s the sort of thing where you’d just want to know where you are.”

Other pilots said they avoided the East River altogether, especially since the Hudson River is wider and does not have such tight restrictions on altitude. “I’ve done the Hudson for 30 years,” said Ilan Reich, a pilot, “but the East River, it’s low and there aren’t many options.”

Though Mr. Stanger may not have been familiar with the skies over New York City, he had rigorously studied aviation in all its different aspects.

“I saw this kid had a passion for airplanes and a talent for airplane maintenance,” recalled Robin Howard, president of Howard Aviation Inc., where Mr. Stanger started working when he was in high school.

In 2001, he graduated from Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., with an associate in science degree after majoring in commercial flight.

Three years later, Mr. Stanger received a bachelor’s degree in aviation management from Southern Illinois University under a program run in partnership with Mount San Antonio College.

He received his flight instructor’s license in September 2003.

Mr. Stanger started his own company, Stang-Air, in 2003 at Brackett Field in the San Gabriel Valley. But he still did delivery flights and some contract work for Howard Aviation. Through Stang-Air, he offered flight lessons and sightseeing flights from the airport.

Mr. Stanger had also been a corporate contract pilot for about a year, flying multiengine propeller planes and single-engine turbo propeller aircraft, which are similar to jets, according to Mr. Howard.

“He would be a guy I would want there in case things got tense. He seemed capable of handling all kinds of emergencies,” said Carl Colley, 57, a former student of Mr. Stanger’s. “He was very enthusiastic, but not a risk taker.”

Mr. Stanger, who once worked as a Mormon missionary for two years, was married with one child and another on the way.

“He was like a son to me,” Mr. Howard said, adding: “He was a great pilot. He could fly any plane you could ask him to. He was a natural.”


Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[vulikox]

Stall/spin?

http://www.atlasaviation.com/Aviatio..._Awareness.htm

[yazetaw]

one of the stranger parts of this story...

Yankee's plane crashed into home of woman once injured by Macy's parade float

NEW YORK A woman whose apartment was burned in the crash of a New York Yankees pitcher's plane was the victim of another high-profile Manhattan accident years earlier.

Relatives tell The New York Daily News that Kathleen Caronna and her family were not yet home when Cory Lidle's aircraft smashed into the building. The plane's engine landed in her bedroom, which went up in flames.

Caronna was critically injured during the 1997 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, when the Cat in the Hat balloon went out of control. The balloon knocked over part of a lamppost. The part then hit the investment analyst in the head. She lay in a coma for nearly a month.

Caronna's sister-in-law told the paper, "It's spooky. It's very spooky."


Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[KkJvrG4d]

February 23, 2007:

[excivaamome]

Amazing it's not yet fixed. Fighting among the insurance companies, no doubt.

[casefexas]

Should they repair the damage to the Belaire Apartments caused by the plane crash? If so, what will the upper floors be converted into?

[myspauyijbv]

?????

I think the owners of the apartments probably want them back.

Should they repair the damage to the Belaire Apartments caused by the plane crash? If so, what will the upper floors be converted into?