Some Thoughts on Cory Lidle
Yesterday I spoke with an old friend who's a pilot about Cory Lidle. He explained to me what he thought must have happened. (His explanation pretty much matches
today's Times account.)
Lidle and his instructor, Tyler Stanger, were flying north up the East River, with its view of Manhattan to the west and Brooklyn and Queens to the east.
It's not an easy route, my friend said. He's never flown it, and he knows only one recreational pilot who has. In contrast to flying up the Hudson, there's a lot to watch out for—bridges, jets, etc. And to comply with FAA regulations, you have to fly at a low altitude; I think he said it was below 1100 feet.
You can fly this route without being cleared by an air traffic controller until you get to Hell's Gate, the intersection of the East River and the Harlem River. Then you have to touch base with LaGuardia and either get permission to proceed or make a U-turn, which is exactly what Lidle was doing when he crashed into a building.
If you are flying along the east side of the river and you make this turn west towards Manhattan, you are generally helped by the fact that, most often, the wind is coming from the west. So you're turning into the wind, which slows you down and gives you more room to maneuver.
But on the day of the crash, the wind was coming from north-northeast, and it was strong, between 12-22 knots. That means that as Lidle was turning towards Manhattan, the wind was vigorously pushing him in that direction. As a result, the buildings may have come up on Lidle and the instructor much faster than they had expected. (At some point, the instructor probably declared, "My plane," and took control.)
The two men could have flown up the west side of the river and made their U-turn towards the east, my friend suggested. But once they turned west and realized that they were in trouble, they could have tried to zoom across 72nd Street at a low altitude. That would have landed them in the papers, my friend said, but they'd have survived.
Instead, they tried to make the turn and failed.
Here's a question I have: Given what happened to Thurman Munson, why do the Yankees allow any of their players to fly private planes?
