Five days after the elimination of
the New York Yankees from the American League playoffs, pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor Tyler Stanger were attempting to return to Teterboro Airport, a major civil
aviation airport in New Jersey. A
distress call was received from Lidle’s Cirrus SR-20, and the craft then
struck midway up a fifty-story residential tower, the Belaire Apartments on 72d
Street.
In the
post- 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, word that a plane had struck a
tall tower on Manhattan Island instantly made its way around the world. The Dow Jones momentarily fell, and NORAD
scrambled air defense assets. Terrorism
was quickly ruled out, but then the story was compounded in its visibility when
it was learned that a New York Yankee had been flying the plane. The media immediately fixated on the “Thurman
Munson” angle, recalling the 1979 crash of the New York Yankees catcher and
captain.
On October 11, 2006, about 1442
eastern daylight time, a Cirrus Design SR20, N929CD, operated as a personal
flight, crashed into an apartment building in Manhattan, New York City, while
attempting to maneuver above the East River. The two pilots on board the
airplane, a certificated private pilot who was the owner of the airplane and a
passenger who was a certificated commercial pilot with a flight instructor
certificate, were killed. One person on the ground sustained serious injuries,
two people on the ground sustained minor injuries, and the airplane was
destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The flight was operating under
the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, and no flight
plan was filed. Marginal visual flight rules (MVFR) conditions prevailed at the
time of the accident.
The
accident airplane departed Teterboro Airport (TEB), Teterboro, New Jersey,
about 1429 and was cleared for a visual flight rules (VFR) departure. According
to air traffic control (ATC) transcripts, the pilots acknowledged that they
were to stay out of the New York class B airspace.
After takeoff, the accident airplane
turned southeast and climbed to an altitude of about 600 to 800 feet. When the
flight reached the western shore of the Hudson River, it turned to the south,
remaining over the river, then descended to 500 feet. The flight continued
southbound over the Hudson River until abeam of the southern tip of Manhattan,
at which point, the flight turned
southwest bound. Radar data from John F. Kennedy International Airport
(JFK), Jamaica, New York; Newark International Airport (EWR), Newark, New
Jersey; and Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, New York, indicated
that the accident airplane's altitude varied from 500 to 700 feet for the
remainder of the flight.
About
1436, the airplane flew around the Statue of Liberty then headed to the
northeast, at which point, it proceeded to fly over the East River. About 1
mile north of the Queensboro Bridge, the airplane made a left turn to reverse
its course. Radar contact was lost about 1442. The airplane impacted a 520-foot
tall apartment building at 524 East 72nd Street, 333 feet above street level.