Lidle accident

[Aerophile]

This may have already been posted, and if it has my apologies, but I found a press release on the Cory Lidle accident that happened in NY back in October 2006.  On May 1, the NTSB posted this press release...

http://ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2007/070501.htm

In an article released by Aviation Week called "Judgment Call" by Frances Fiorino, they list this link where you can go see the NTSB animation of the Cirrus's flight path down the East River Class B exclusion area...

http://ntsb.gov/events/2007/Manhattan-N ... iption.htm

I looked around on Aviation Week's website and couldn't find the article, otherwise I would have posted a link to that as well.

[beaky]

Yup... that's about right.

You can clearly see that they initiated the turn over Roosevelt Island, which lies smack dab in the middle of the exclusion, instead of a bit farther east, which would have given them a better margin for their turn.
Since the wind was out of the east, by the time they had turned past 90 degrees, they were out of room to finish the turn at their present bank angle and rate of turn.
It's baffling that they not only didn't use the full width of the exclusion box, but they didn't try to tighten the turn until it was pretty much too late.
I guess their unfamiliarity with the aircraft and the airspace were factors... at any rate, it's depressing (aside from the loss of life) that the first collision ever of a light aircraft with a building in New York City had to occur due only to such poor airmanship.

[NDSP]

The Lidle accident was quite a biggie for all yankee fans. I remember posting for 3 hours straight about it at the yesnetwork.com message board. Of course those were the days when that message board was organized and people didnt have sigs that take up half the page

[elite marksman]

It was quite a biggie for Philly fans too... We had traded Lidel to you guys about a month before...

[bok269]

Not to mention every New Yorker who rembembers that fateful day exactly 5 years and a month earlier.  And that means every New Yorker.

My aunt lives across the intersection.  Those was a few tense moments before we learned it wasn't her building.