Small aircraft crashes into NYC high rise

[rockefeller center]

Lidle says "7000 feet"="glide for 20 minutes"

This Captain says you lose height at "2500 to 3000 feet per minute"

That means at most three minutes of glide.

Lidle and the Captain are talking about different types of airplanes, aren't they? Yes, apples glide worse than oranges. Now, we also could ask a Space Shuttle (which is a glider after reentering the atmosphere) pilot and get another rate of descent. 7000 ft -> 15-20 minutes glide in a Cessna Skyhawk doesn't sound unrealistic at all. If there's sufficient thermal lift it might even climb...

engine failure - > no airspeed -> no lift - > plane stalls

Fact is: an airplane doesn't stall or fall out of the sky just because the engine goes out.

Edited October 12, 2006 by rockefeller center

[J Larsen]

It's always a surprise when I am in New York to see the number of planes flying over the city.

Flying over Paris is a no-no, except on very rare occasions. And I suppose it's the same over main cities all over the world.

Getting from New Jersey to NYC is not that much of a problem via car, bus or train!

I'm still surprised by it and I've lived here for seven years now. A big part of the problem is the location of Laguardia, which was extremely poor urban planning, IMO.

[sheldonm]

From ESPN.com's report:

Lidle also talked about airplanes' safety in an interview with MLB.com in February.

"If you're 7,000 feet in the air and your engine stops, you can glide for 20 minutes," Lidle said at the time. "As long as you're careful, everything should be fine."

Although it doesn't appear this had anything to do with the crash, I find this statement odd. Are there any pilots who can confirm this fact? When I was involved in producing aviation English course materials, I wrote a question along the lines of a pilot of a private one-engine plane giving a mayday call for an engine failure asking for a vector to the nearest airport and one of our expert consultants, a pilot, basically said that if you're in a single engine plane and it fails, you fall out of the sky and can forget trying to reach an airport.

engine failure - > no airspeed -> no lift - > plane stalls

Glider pilot here. This conclusion is wrong. You can't win the world gliding championships in a Cessna Skyhawk but it won't fall out of the sky just because the engine goes out.

By the way, Boeing 747s, 767s, etc. can glide too: http://www.askcaptainlim.com/questionsviaemail.htm

Having flown a plane several times but not currently a licensed pilot, I would have to agree!

m~

Edited October 12, 2006 by sheldonm

[7/4]

what on earth is someone with so little flying experience doing flying around a big city! I don't even like like living next to Newark (big airport) and Linden (small airport) any more. scares the crap outta me.

- from the eight floor of a high rise in scenic Rahway, NJ.

[RDK]

what on earth is someone with so little flying experience doing flying around a big city! I don't even like like living next to Newark (big airport) and Linden (small airport) any more. scares the crap outta me.

- from the eight floor of a high rise in scenic Rahway, NJ.

Well, the news is now reporting that an experienced flight instructor was flying with him, so the "inexperienced" part is probably moot. It's also looking more and more like some mechanical failure caused the plane to "turn" into the building.

I agree, though, that it makes little sense for small planes to fly so close to the city.

[RDK]

When I first saw the news story being reported on wednesday morning, I was just waiting for someone in the White House staff to come out and say a North Vietnamese person was in the cockpit of said plane! Voila, an excuse to bomb another country back to the 12th century.

In breaking news, Bush just declared war on the Yankees...

[7/4]

When I first saw the news story being reported on wednesday morning, I was just waiting for someone in the White House staff to come out and say a North Vietnamese person was in the cockpit of said plane! Voila, an excuse to bomb another country back to the 12th century.

In breaking news, Bush just declared war on the Yankees...

It was only as matter of time.

[7/4]

what on earth is someone with so little flying experience doing flying around a big city! I don't even like like living next to Newark (big airport) and Linden (small airport) any more. scares the crap outta me.

- from the eight floor of a high rise in scenic Rahway, NJ.

Well, the news is now reporting that an experienced flight instructor was flying with him, so the "inexperienced" part is probably moot. It's also looking more and more like some mechanical failure caused the plane to "turn" into the building.

I agree, though, that it makes little sense for small planes to fly so close to the city.

Bad weather too. If he was flying over water like JFK, jr, the results might have been different.

[Dan Gould]

Its not definitive, but this portion of an article in today's NYT probably says all that's needed about the circumstances of this crash (Stanger was the flight instructor):

If this was Mr. Stanger’s second time up this section of the East River, then Mr. Stanger was traveling with little experience through a patch of urban air that many veteran New York City pilots say they make a point of avoiding.

They say that pilots try to keep from doing what Mr. Lidle’s plane did: turning left sharply between the east and west banks of the river in an attempt to avoid going into La Guardia Airport airspace.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that the pair had told air traffic controllers they intended to make the left turn and that they were traveling at 112 miles per hour when last glimpsed on radar. The investigators said the plane had gone to 500 feet from 700 feet in roughly a quarter of a mile, but gave no suggestion as to why.

Investigators said they were not even sure who was flying the plane, a sporty four-seater.

Local pilots with experience traveling through New York City’s busy and tricky airspace said that Mr. Lidle’s plane appeared to have followed the rules when he turned left, but that they knew better alternatives: either pilots get clearance from La Guardia, which would not have been a problem on Wednesday; or just skip the East River altogether and go up the Hudson River; or request permission to turn right and make a U-turn that carries them over a sliver of Queens.

One pilot said that he would rather run the risk of receiving a citation by flying without permission through La Guardia airspace than attempt the left turn.

Pilots are allowed to fly without contact with air traffic controllers up the East River to Roosevelt Island’s northern tip in what is known as an “exclusion” devised to keep small craft away from larger craft and to reduce radio traffic with controllers in congested New York. To fly north past the island, a pilot needs to request the clearance from La Guardia.

Without a clearance, however, the pilot must make the 180-degree turn in the confined space above the river banks — a width of about 2,000 feet.

“It’s like a box canyon,” said Ken Nurenberg, who has flown in the New York area for 30 years, but has never flown in a fixed-wing aircraft up the East River. “You go in, but you have to turn around to get out. You’re not allowed off the river and it’s pretty narrow.”

Stanley Anderson, who owns AviateRight, a flight school in Farmingdale, N.Y., has flown the route 50 times, but always with a clearance to continue on from La Guardia. “I would never even try to do a 180,” he said. “No way.”

So basically they took a flight path that for VFR pilots dead ends into LaGuardia airspace. You can try to make the turn in a "box canyon" or you can request permission from ATC to enter LaGuardia airspace or you can enter their airspace and risk a citation.

It looks like they chose wrong.