Plane hits building in New York!

[Anark]

As the title says.
BBC news link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6042306.stm

[FsNovice]

this is rather upto date news for once, so new that noone has confirmed what type of aircraft was involved. Deepest sympathys to the pilot and people invloved.

[flyboy 28]

I already posted this in General, but alright.

They're now thinking it was a twin engine prop.

[beaky]

A Yahoo link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_ ... lane_crash

I was just stepping onto the 21st floor of a building about 10 blocks away when I heard about this shortly after it happend; couldn't really see anything.

Still not 100% sure if it was a heli or fixed-wing, let alone what type.

Ceiling here is above 1000 feet right now and it struck on the 20th floor (about 250 feet MSL over there), so very hard to say yet what happened, although i doubt wx was a factor.

There is a VFR corridor over the East river; it may have been a light single on a VFR flight that got into trouble.

[Anark]

I already posted this in General, but alright.

They're now thinking it was a twin engine prop.

Oops! sorry about that, I didn't check there

[Mobius]

Apparently it was a Cirrus SR-20 with Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle.  Sad news...

[Saitek]

As usual a massive media response to what is basically a bad weather/pilot error incident if you ask me looking at those pics. I hardly think the US need to send fighter jet all over their cities in response.

This is very sad for those who perished and for the families who have lost their homes to this sad events. I got the impression no-one inside has been killed, just the aircraft's occupants.

[The Ruptured Duck]

Ugh, I heard so many stories today on the news I'm sick of hearing about it

[Brett_Henderson]

There are two threads (one in General Discussion) about this. I imagine that this will be the thread to continue.

As more info filters out, the picture will get clearer, but it sure is puzzling as of now. Last reported; It was indeed the Yankee pitcher, Cory Lidle's plane.. and he was with an instructor. The Yankees put it into the players contracts that if they fly (even licensed) they must have an instructor, because of the Thurman Munson accident, years ago.

Also.. it's being reported that they had radioed ATC about a problem. No word yet on what the problem was; or if they had declared an emergency. The news report I just heard said that they had run out of fuel.

[beaky]

Whatever happened, it was not a good place to lose power or have any other serious problem.
Those not familiar with the VFR exclusion areas over NYC should look at this... I've roughly superimposed the dimensions of the East River corridor over Google Earth imagery. The red arrows indicate the building struck. The aircraft impacted the 41st floor, which would put them at 400-500MSL.

Except for the up-to-1500-foot area over Brooklyn and New York Bay, this box is surrounded on all sides by the Class B, which goes down to the surface on both sides of the area.
Not suggesting that a licensed pilot and an instructor would worry about entering the Class B in an emergency, but I'll bet they were turning around anyway when the problem occurred, rather than taking a tower-controlled cut across Manhattan at Central Park, which is generally the only allowance made for VFR flights entering or exiting that  area. More than likely they were trying to stay within the exclusion, initially. It's pretty tight, as you can see.

I only bring that up because I've never ventured into that box, and probably never will, assuming they don't close it now.
It's a trap, and not just because of the confined airspace- the problem is that there's nowhere to go from that altitude if you lose power or need to land ASAP. Forget the FDR or the BQE... maybe at dawn on   Memorial Day, but even then there are wires and barriers, etc.

I hope he wasn't trying to make it to Central Park, because that's a long shot from 1000 feet or thereabouts (the buildings north of 59th Street are taller than they appear here), and once you get there, you'd realize it's mostly wooded.

I have no theory about this terrible accident, but I have avoided that airspace because I know that in an emergency, my only reasonable option would be the river. Not worth it, IMHO.

I've taken my chances in the Hudson corridor a few times, but only because there's more room there  to turn around and try to make it to Liberty State Park, which is the only possible safe landing area near that exclusion. The odds of avoiding a ditching are much better, and if you lost control, the Hudson is about twice as wide, and you'd likely end up in the water rather than striking a building.







     

This raises a question: does this exclusion violate the "1000 feet above nearest obstacle within 2000 horizontal feet" rule regarding flight over congested areas? I've tried to imagine how I'd maintain that clearance while maneuvering in this box, and I don't see it .
I'm hardly the type to promote eliminating more free airspace, but this area has always worried me.


Sometimes I hate being right...  

[Brown]

I also thought there was a law requring aircraft to be above FL180 over city of New York or higher anybody heard of this .

[Brett_Henderson]

Great post, Rotty. When I flew to Oshkosh, I ended up going around Chicago (visibility), but really wanted to fly the (in)famous, VFR flyway along Lake Michigan. With the loss of Meigs, it's an eerily similar deal. Lose power and it's either buildings or water. The altitude limit is a little more comfy at 2500msl, but that still doesn't give you much to work with, when the power goes away.

I have to agree that a literal free-for all in that environment (not to mention it might as well be IN bravo airspace), probably isn't a good idea... and I'm afraid that that VFR flyway should be more controlled too.

[Ivan]

@rotty: is limiting to amphibians / floatplanes an option for you?

Anyway, they might have had a better chance if they declared an emergency, asked for permission to climb above the corridor and then popped the chute (if they had one fitted in that Cirrus)

[Hagar]

Anyway, they might have had a better chance if they declared an emergency, asked for permission to climb above the corridor and then popped the chute (if they had one fitted in that Cirrus)

If you read the news reports it was fitted with a safety parachute which seems to be one reason that Lidle chose that type of aircraft.* It's also been reported that there was no attempt to use it. If Brett is correct they ran out of fuel. This seems unlikely as they had recently taken off & eye-witness reports of aircraft accidents are notoriously unreliable. There are reports of it flying erratically before the crash & it's quite possible they had some sort of engine problem which would make it impossible to climb.

Not much point in speculating until all the facts are known. I'm sure there will be a very comprehensive investigation into this tragic accident.

*PS. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_on_re_us/manhattan_plane_crash

Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, told The New York Times last month that his four-seat Cirrus SR20 was safe.

"The whole plane has a parachute on it," Lidle said. "Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you're up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly."

[Ivan]

So he had a chute... so why didnt he use it?

Anyone has info about what damage the chute deployment causes on a SR20?