WASHINGTON – New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor apparently did not anticipate the strength of a crosswind when they turned left, an error that could explain how their plane strayed near tall buildings and crashed into a condominium tower, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
The preliminary analysis is the closest authorities have come to determining why Lidle and his friend and instructor Tyler Stanger crashed into a building Oct. 11 during a sightseeing excursion up the narrow East River corridor in New York. Both men died in the crash.
So far, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board have found no mechanical defects in Lidle’s plane, a Cirrus SR20 single-engine propeller aircraft that the relief pitcher owned, according to three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the accident.
It is not known whether Lidle, 34, a relatively new pilot, or 26-year-old Stanger was controlling the aircraft.
The plane was cruising north at 112 mph along the East River on an overcast day when the pilots began to make a U-turn near 70th Street to head back down the channel, which is about 2,100 feet wide at that point.
As the pilots began to turn, they picked up a tail wind of about 15 mph out of the east. That wind increased the speed of the plane and pushed it several hundred feet closer to the shore and the city’s skyline, according to the sources.
The pilots started their turn near the center of the channel – not the far east side of the river where they should have begun to compensate for the stiff wind, according to radar data, the sources said. That decision cut their turning radius by several hundred feet.
The plane then flew over the west bank of the river and crashed into the 30th floor of a condo tower.
Outside experts said the analysis appeared to be a solid explanation for the crash, especially if investigators find nothing wrong with the Cirrus. They also noted that the pilots were unfamiliar with the challenging airspace. Lidle had only recently gotten his license, and his instructor had done most of his flying in California.
“They essentially flew into the East Coast version of a blind canyon,” said Bruce Landsberg, executive director of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Foundation. “Halfway into the turn, they probably realized that the buildings were a lot closer than they thought.”
Sources differ on what happened in the seconds before the crash. Some investigators think the pilots realized they had not turned steeply enough to avoid the buildings and jerked the plane into a sharp bank, stalling the aircraft, which then hurtled out of control into the building. Radar data indicate that the plane dropped about 200 feet in just a few seconds before the crash – evidence of a stall, the sources said.
Another theory is that the pilots realized what had happened, managed to dodge one building and then slammed into the condo tower because they had nowhere else to turn.
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