Investigators sift clues in N.Y. plane crash

updated 8:35 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2006

NEW YORK - Investigators and workers in hard hats gathered up the scorched pieces of New York Yankee Cory Lidle’s shattered plane at a luxury high-rise Thursday in a floor-by-floor sweep for clues to why the aircraft crashed.

The pitcher and his flight instructor were killed when their plane slammed into the 40-story condominium tower Wednesday.

Crews recovered the nose, wings, tail and instrument panel of the plane along with a hand-held GPS device as they conducted an exhaustive search of the building — inspecting even terraces and ledges, said National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman.

Men in hard hats lifted pieces of wreckage from the street and placed them neatly on a silver-colored tarp in the bed of a pickup truck. Neighborhood children gathered to gawk at the jagged and twisted metal, glass shards, and charred wing and door.

Hersman said the single-engine plane was cruising at 112 mph at 700 feet of altitude as it tried to make a U-turn to go south down the East River. It was last seen on radar about a quarter-mile north of the building, in the middle of the turn, at 500 feet.

“Early examination indicates that the propellers were turning” at the time of impact, Hersman said, suggesting the engine was still running.

She said toxicology samples had been obtained from the bodies, and would also be examined.

Returning home
Residents began returning to their battered and scarred apartments, one day after the crash engulfed apartments in flames and sent fiery wreckage raining down on the street and sidewalk. One witness said he saw the charred body of one of the victims in the street.

“It was in a fetal position, strapped into a seat. I could see a white leg sticking up. It was awful,” said maintenance worker Juan Rosario, adding that other plane wreckage, including a door and wheels, was strewn near the body.

The medical examiner’s office removed the bodies Wednesday, but pieces of fuselage, a plane door and crushed vehicles still littered the street. Officials said aircraft parts and headsets were on the ground, and investigators discovered the pilot’s log book in the wreckage.

Flight instructor's story
More details also emerged Thursday about the flight instructor who was with Lidle aboard the four-seat Cirrus SR20 during the sightseeing flight around Manhattan. Tyler Stanger, 26, operated a flight school in La Verne, Calif.

Stanger earned his pilot’s license by 17 and earned a degree in aviation management from Southern Illinois University, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. He worked for several years as an aircraft mechanic.

Stanger had known Lidle, who lived in Southern California in the offseason, for about a year. According to The New York Times, they met the day after the 2005 season ended and flew to Long Beach, Calif.

Lidle “was probably my best student,” and had a knack for dealing with simulated emergencies, Stanger told the newspaper last month.

Stanger’s 3-year-old business, Stang-AIR, offered instruction, plane rentals and sightseeing trips. Stang-AIR’s Web site contained a quote that said: “The most dangerous part about flying is the drive to the airport.”

Stanger is survived by his wife, Stephanie, who is pregnant, and an infant daughter.

Leisurely trip gone wrong
Lidle boarded his single-engine plane Wednesday afternoon with Stanger for what was supposed to be a leisurely flight around New York City. They took off from a suburban New Jersey airport, circled around the Statue of Liberty, flew past lower Manhattan and north above the East River.

But something went wrong just moments after passing above the 59th Street Bridge. The plane smashed into a luxury high-rise condominium building on the Upper East Side, killing Lidle and the other passenger and showering fiery debris on the sidewalk and street below, officials said.

“They were going to fly back together. It was right after the loss to Detroit,” said Dave Conriguez, who works at the airport coffee shop in California that Stanger frequented. “Tyler’s such a great flight instructor that I never gave it a second thought. It was just, ‘See you in a week.”’

The crash prompted renewed calls for the government to restrict the airspace around Manhattan to help ensure planes cannot get so close to the city’s skyscrapers. Much of the airspace over two of the main rivers that encircle Manhattan is open to small aircraft flying under 1,100 feet.

Randy Miller / Bucks County Courier Times via AP Cory Lidle, the New York Yankees pitcher killed in a plane crash Wednesday, goes through a pre-flight inspection of a Cessna aircraft in St. Petersburg, Fla., in February. Lidle was an amateur pilot and had recently bought the SR20 plane that crashed.

A day after the crash, the building had a gaping hole where bricks and glass used to be, and a black scorch mark, six stories long.

Lidle, who was 34 and had a wife and 6-year-old son, had obtained his pilot’s license during last year’s offseason, and viewed flying as an escape from the stress of professional baseball and a way to see the world in a different light. It was not clear who was at the controls — Lidle or Stanger.

Hersman said that as of September, there were 545 SR20s registered in the United States. Since 2001, the NTSB has investigated 18 accidents involving the plane; those crashes resulted in 14 deaths.

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