SR-20 crash

CNN is running a story saying that a Yankees pitcher was killed in a Cirrus that impacted a high-rise building in Manhatten. Does anyone have any details?

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CNN is running a story saying that a Yankees pitcher was killed in a Cirrus that impacted a high-rise building in Manhatten. Does anyone have any details?


There are a ton of details, speculation and opinion on our Member’s side, but quite frannkly, the news sources are the source of most of it.

It does appear to be NY Yankee Pitcher Corey Lidle, a low time pilot and new owner and maybe a CFI, who went sightseeing. Tey took off from Teteboro (Sp?) (TEB) airport did a 360 around the statue of liberty, flew around up the East River and then for some reason crashed into about the 41st floor of an east side condo.

Reports vary, but it appears that 2 people were killed, both in the airplane. The fire is out and residents have been allowed back int he building. No structural damage occurred.

(nice screen name!)

My understanding is it was level 800ft and made a sharp turn, putting it straight into the condo building. Confirmed 2 killed - Lyle and the instructor.

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There are a ton of details, speculation and opinion on our Member’s side, but quite frannkly, the news sources are the source of most of it.
It does appear to be NY Yankee Pitcher Corey Lidle, a low time pilot and new owner and maybe a CFI, who went sightseeing. Tey took off from Teteboro (Sp?) (TEB) airport did a 360 around the statue of liberty, flew around up the East River and then for some reason crashed into about the 41st floor of an east side condo.
Reports vary, but it appears that 2 people were killed, both in the airplane. The fire is out and residents have been allowed back int he building. No structural damage occurred.
(nice screen name!)


Has anyone heard anything about the CFI?

Is there any discussion on the members side as to why this guy was flying up the East river and not talking to LGA. It may have been legal but sure was not smart in a fixed wing. I’m afraid we will all pay the price and lose the Hudson corridor now.

the Hudson corridor I always liked, I flew up the East River one once and I didn’t like it at all. If I remember correctly (and if I don’t someone’s going to correct me) the East River corridor ends and the only way out (without a clearance into the B) is to turn around and come back out the way you went in. I recall U-turning in the Hudson corridor once in a Mooney and I used up more of the width of the river than I originally intended and proved to myself that when you do turns around a point in a GA plane you point your wing to the same spot, but the circle is still quite wide. I never U-turned in it again, always flew out the other side and turned around there and didn’t go up the East river without a clearance to continue.

I found it quite easy to imagine wobbling the steep turn a bit and suddenly finding that there was no way to finish it in the space available.

Not saying that’s what happened, but it is a scenario which bothered me after that first U-turn and I didn’t do it again.

My thoughts are with Cory Lidle’s family and friends, it’s very sad.

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Is there any discussion on the members side as to why this guy was flying up the East river and not talking to LGA. It may have been legal but sure was not smart in a fixed wing. I’m afraid we will all pay the price and lose the Hudson corridor now.


Well of course if he was talking to LGA they would have been able to take remote control of the aircraft and avoid the crash!

Isn’t that what the “Control” Tower does?

I bet the reckless maniac didn’t even file a Flight Plan!!!

Anyone consider that perhaps this was just a simple engine failure (for whatever reason) that occurred over a built up area and resulted in a crash only made spectacular by virtue of the impact location?

With any modern transportation method operating in, over or under cities from trains, to buses, to subways, to airliners to trucks for heaven’s sake, there are going to be accidents. Tragic ones like subway fires, the Airbus that crashed in New York a few years ago, tanker truck and rail spills, bridge failures etc.

Thankful for small mercies, the only people killed/hurt were the occupants and no one on the ground.

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Is there any discussion on the members side…


I’ll try to be polite.

You’re asking members to take the time and filter/cross-post info from the Member’s side just so you don’t have to join?

C’mon, it’s only $50.

I don’t know about others, but my time has value, and using it to transfer info back and forth between forums doesn’t seem like the best use of it.

Which might also be said for this post [;)]

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Is there any discussion on the members side . . .


Yes, as of right now, there are close to 10,500 views of existing comments and over 107 comments in one thread alone. There are multiple threads as to diffferent aspects of the incident.

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Well of course if he was talking to LGA they would have been able to take remote control of the aircraft and avoid the crash!
Isn’t that what the “Control” Tower does?
I bet the reckless maniac didn’t even file a Flight Plan!!!
Anyone consider that perhaps this was just a simple engine failure (for whatever reason) that occurred over a built up area and resulted in a crash only made spectacular by virtue of the impact location?
With any modern transportation method operating in, over or under cities from trains, to buses, to subways, to airliners to trucks for heaven’s sake, there are going to be accidents. Tragic ones like subway fires, the Airbus that crashed in New York a few years ago, tanker truck and rail spills, bridge failures etc.
Thankful for small mercies, the only people killed/hurt were the occupants and no one on the ground.


Talking to LGA would have allowed him to climb into the class B before executing a 180. Bear in mind that the VFR airspace he was operating in is only over the water and below 1,100’ Flying over the city is prohibited unless you are talking to ATC. There is no question he broke the airspace. Back to my original point. If you aren’t talking to ATC you have no business flying up the East river in a fixed wing aircraft.

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Anyone consider that perhaps this was just a simple engine failure …


Media reports include descriptions of a rapid loss of altitude and control. So it doesn’t sound like a simple engine failure / forced approach scenario, rather another loss of control accident and again with a CFI on board.

Amen Bob!!!

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Media reports include descriptions of a rapid loss of altitude and control. So it doesn’t sound like a simple engine failure / forced approach scenario, rather another loss of control accident and again with a CFI on board.


Steve,

Are you looking for a Cirrus specific cause? Do you feel safer when you can identify the cause to a Cirrus specific flight control? Will You feel better?

Did Aero-News pass the Steve Demy sugar coat test?

I flew in the Lancaster, CA SR20 that crashed and I flew with the CFI that crashed in that accident. Today’s incident and Lancaster, CA have one reflection in common. Training at low altitude is not a good idea regardless of the plane manufacturer.

Larry King had an eyewitness pilot who said he observed the plane doing controlled maneuvers and thought that the corridor was the wrong place to be maneuvering. The MFD data files will reveal their flight path, RPM settings, etc.

More often than not it will be the pilots and not the manufacturer.

Cirrus is attractive to many pilots and non pilots. Are there many potential mental decision making traps with CAPS, TAWS, a/p, etc…YES. But that is why COPA for us and LOPA for you can be good safety tools for us.

Today’s story is a big deal because it is a celebrity…not because it was a Cirrus.

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Steve,
Are you looking for a Cirrus specific cause? Do you feel safer when you can identify the cause to a Cirrus specific flight control? Will You feel better?
Did Aero-News pass the Steve Demy sugar coat test?
I flew in the Lancaster, CA SR20 that crashed and I flew with the CFI that crashed in that accident. Today’s incident and Lancaster, CA have one reflection in common. Training at low altitude is not a good idea regardless of the plane manufacturer.
Larry King had an eyewitness pilot who said he observed the plane doing controlled maneuvers and thought that the corridor was the wrong place to be maneuvering. The MFD data files will reveal their flight path, RPM settings, etc.
More often than not it will be the pilots and not the manufacturer.
Cirrus is attractive to many pilots and non pilots. Are there many potential mental decision making traps with CAPS, TAWS, a/p, etc…YES. But that is why COPA for us and LOPA for you can be good safety tools for us.
Today’s story is a big deal because it is a celebrity…not because it was a Cirrus.


see the following. Just proves that media info is suspect.

http://www4.passur.com/lga.html

Put in 14:40 and hit “start” and you can watch the track of the
accident airplane from just south of the 59th street bridge right into
the building. Click on the aircraft and it will show altitude data
and turn red.

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Are you looking for a Cirrus specific cause?


Identifying patterns in data is one way to help find and resolve safety problems, leading to a better GA experience for all of us, and avoid bad news days like today.

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I flew in the Lancaster, CA SR20 that crashed and I flew with the CFI that crashed in that accident. Today’s incident and Lancaster, CA have one reflection in common. Training at low altitude is not a good idea regardless of the plane manufacturer.


I’ll add both CFI’s had little time in type.

Bob:

Thanks for the link. Interestingly there was another plane that came down the opposite end of the corridor at 200’ or less. I could imagine MVFR, Traffic Watch screaming, 140 Kts GS, 800’ or less agl and avoiding class bravo all around. You can receive false echoes from Traffic watch in a canyon type enviromnment like that too. Passur.com reminds me of traffic watch in my plane. I don’t know if his 2002 had a traffic system.

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Identifying patterns in data is one way to help find and resolve safety problems, leading to a better GA experience for all of us, and avoid bad news days like today.


Agreed.

I can confirm that COPA and Cirrus Design have a high level of commitment to doing just that – identifying patterns, finding safety problems, and resolving issues. The Cirrus fatal accident rate has changed significantly for the better coincident with expansion of the COPA CPPP (Cirrus Pilot Proficiency Program), the COPA Critical Decision Making seminars, the Cirrus Design program for instructors CSIP (Cirrus Stanardized Instructor Program) and insurance companies have required annual recurrent training. The evolution of the Cirrus SR2X manufacturing process and airplane design includes numerous small and major changes that enhance safety.

So, the Cirrus community is committed to working on both parts of the system – human and mechanical.

Steve, your earlier assertion that this accident was “another loss of control accident and again with a CFI on board” is premature. Don’t know what your intent was, but I suspect that this matches your pattern of questioning the design decisions of Cirrus.

Cheers
Rick

p.s. Since you have been a Columbia advocate, were you aware that production Lancair/Columbia airplanes had a substantially worse fatal accident rate than the GA rate over the past three years? About 1.63 fatal accidents per 100,000 flying hours compared to 1.3. The curse of a few accidents and a small fleet size. Even with the New York accident, the Cirrus fleet of 2800 planes have flown 1.35 million hours and have an approximate fatal accient rate of 1.31 per 100,000 hours for the past three years.

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Is there any discussion on the member side?


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I’ll try to be polite.
You’re asking members to take the time and filter/cross-post info from the Member’s side just so you don’t have to join?
C’mon, it’s only $50.
I don’t know about others, but my time has value, and using it to transfer info back and forth between forums doesn’t seem like the best use of it.
Which might also be said for this post


Hey Ed: You can’t blame him for asking the question! One of my biggest challenges of child rearing was getting my son to ask the question. I always told him that if he asked, there was a chance he would get what he wanted, but if he didn’t ask, I could guaranty what the answer was.

If any of us actually knew anything that was not publicly available in the media, I would be totally surprised.

Actually, there was some speculation, probably correct, about the CFI and many conversations about the errors in the media.

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I can confirm that COPA and Cirrus Design have a high level of commitment to doing just that – identifying patterns, finding safety problems, and resolving issues. The Cirrus fatal accident rate has changed significantly for the better coincident with expansion of the COPA CPPP (Cirrus Pilot Proficiency Program), the COPA Critical Decision Making seminars, the Cirrus Design program for instructors CSIP (Cirrus Stanardized Instructor Program) and insurance companies have required annual recurrent training. The evolution of the Cirrus SR2X manufacturing process and airplane design includes numerous small and major changes that enhance safety.


But, in the end, we can’t force Cirrus pilots to be COPA members or to attend the Cirrus Pilot Proficiency Program or to attend the other focused programs available to them or for that matter, even to stay informed on common concerns. Nor can we force an instructor to be a CSIP instructor, and maintain a level of proficiancy with thie particular aircraft and it’s flight characteristics.

I have seen no mention in any of the discussions that the aircraft owner was a COPA member, nor was the instructor a CSIP instructor.

There is not such thing as being a too trained pilot.
95 hrs and now I can fly NY to California VFR just doesn’t seem to me like a too well trained pilot.