S
SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim
Guest
NEW YORK - A small plane carrying New York Yankee Cory Lidle slammed into a
50-story skyscraper Wednesday, apparently killing the pitcher and a second
person in a crash that rained flaming debris onto the sidewalks and briefly
raised fears of another terrorist attack.
A law enforcement official in Washington said Lidle - an avid pilot who got
his flying license during last year's offseason - was aboard the
single-engine aircraft when it crashed into the 30th and 31st floors of the
high-rise on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said both
people aboard were killed.
It was not clear who was at the controls. But the Washington official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lidle's passport was found at the
scene.
Federal Aviation Administration records showed the plane was registered to
Lidle, who had repeatedly assured reporters in recent months that flying was
safe and that the Yankees - who lost catcher Thurman Munson in the 1979
crash of a plane he was piloting - had no reason to worry.
"The flying?" the 34-year-old Lidle told The Philadelphia Inquirer this
summer. "I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very
comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane."
The crash came just four days after the Yankees' humiliating elimination
from the playoffs, during which Lidle had been relegated to the bullpen. In
recent days, Lidle had taken abuse from fans on sports talk radio for saying
the team was unprepared.
The law enforcement official said the plane had issued a distress call
before the crash.
The FAA said it was too early to determine what might have caused the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators.
"This is a terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the entire Yankees
organization," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement. He
offered his condolences to Lidle's wife and son.
The crash rattled New Yorkers' nerves five years after the Sept. 11 attacks,
abut the FBI and the Homeland Security quickly said there was no evidence it
was anything but an accident. Nevertheless, within 10 minutes of the crash,
fighter jets were sent aloft over several cities, including New York,
Washington, Los Angeles and Seattle, Pentagon officials said.
The plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit The Belaire - a red-brick
tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from the World Trade
Center - with a loud bang, touching off a raging fire that cast a pillar of
black smoke over the city and sent flames shooting from four windows on two
adjoining floors.
Firefighters put the blaze out in less than an hour.
Large crowds gathered in the street in the largely wealthy New York
neighborhood, with many people in tears and some trying to reach loved ones
by cell phone.
"It wasn't until I was halfway home that I started shaking. The whole memory
of an airplane flying into a building and across the street from your home.
It's a little too close to home," Sara Green, 40, who lives across the
street from The Belair. "It crossed my mind that it was something bigger or
the start of something bigger."
On Sunday, the day after the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs,
Lidle cleaned out his locker at Yankee Stadium and talked about his interest
in flying.
He said he intended to fly back to California in several days and planned to
make a few stops. Lidle disccused the plane crash of John F. Kennedy Jr. and
how he had read the accident report on the National Transportation Safety
Board Web site.
Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, told The New York
Times last month that his four-seat Cirrus SR20 plane 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."
Lidle pitched 1 1/3 innings in the fourth and final game of the Division
Series against the Detroit Tigers and gave up three earned runs, but was not
the losing pitcher. He had a 12-10 regular-season record with a 4.85 ERA.
He pitched with the Phillies before coming to the Yankees. Began his career
in 1997 with the Mets. He also pitched for Tampa Bay, Oakland, Toronto and
Cincinnati.
The guarantee language of Lidle's $6.3 million, two-year contract, signed
with the Phillies in November 2004, contained a provision saying the team
could get out of paying the remainder if he were injured or killed while
piloting a plane. Because the regular season is over, Lidle already had
received the full amount in the deal.
After the Yankees' defeat at the hands of the Tigers, Lidle called in to
WFAN sports-talk radio two days before the crash to defend manager Joe
Torre, and said: "I want to win as much as anybody. But what am I supposed
to do? Go cry in my apartment for the next two weeks."
Lidle was an outcast among some teammates throughout his career because he
became a replacement player in 1995, when major leaguers were on strike.
Among the baseball stars killed in plane crashes were Roberto Clemente,
Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, killed Dec. 31, 1972, at age 38 while en
route to Nicaragua to aid earthquake victims; and Munson, the Yankee catcher
killed Aug. 2, 1979, at age 32 in the crash of his plane in Canton, Ohio.
"It's just sadder than sad," said New York Mets pitching coach Rick
Peterson, who was Lidle's pitching coach in Oakland. "It's horrific. It's
almost unbelievable. It's a surreal moment."
Young May Cha, a 23-year-old Cornell University medical student, said she
was walking back from the grocery store down 72nd Street when she saw
something come across the sky and crash into the building. Cha said there
appeared to be smoke coming from behind the aircraft, and "it looked like it
was flying erratically for the short time that I saw it."
The plane left New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, just across the Hudson River
from the city, at 2:30 p.m., about 15 minutes before the crash, according to
officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates
the airport. But they said they did not where the aircraft was headed.
Former NTSB director Jim Hall said in a telephone interview he doesn't
understand how a plane could get so close to a New York City building after
Sept. 11.
"We're under a high alert and you would assume that if something like this
happened, people would have known about it before it occurred, not after,"
Hall said.
Mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark, daughter of author Mary Higgins Clark,
lives on the 38th floor and was coming home in a cab when she saw the smoke.
"Thank goodness I wasn't at my apartment writing at the time," she said. She
described the building's residents as a mix of actors, doctors, lawyers and
writers, and people with second homes.
Despite initial fears of a terrorist attack, all three New York City-area
airports continued to operate normally, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. The
White House said neither President Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney was
moved to secure locations.
The Belaire was built in the late 1980s and is situated near Sotheby's
auction house. It has 183 apartments, many of which sell for more than $1
million.
Several lower floors are occupied by doctors and administrative offices, as
well as guest facilities for family members of patients at the Hospital for
Special Surgery, hospital spokeswoman Phyllis Fisher said.
No patients were in the high-rise building and operations at the hospital a
block away were not affected, Fisher said
50-story skyscraper Wednesday, apparently killing the pitcher and a second
person in a crash that rained flaming debris onto the sidewalks and briefly
raised fears of another terrorist attack.
A law enforcement official in Washington said Lidle - an avid pilot who got
his flying license during last year's offseason - was aboard the
single-engine aircraft when it crashed into the 30th and 31st floors of the
high-rise on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said both
people aboard were killed.
It was not clear who was at the controls. But the Washington official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, said Lidle's passport was found at the
scene.
Federal Aviation Administration records showed the plane was registered to
Lidle, who had repeatedly assured reporters in recent months that flying was
safe and that the Yankees - who lost catcher Thurman Munson in the 1979
crash of a plane he was piloting - had no reason to worry.
"The flying?" the 34-year-old Lidle told The Philadelphia Inquirer this
summer. "I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very
comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane."
The crash came just four days after the Yankees' humiliating elimination
from the playoffs, during which Lidle had been relegated to the bullpen. In
recent days, Lidle had taken abuse from fans on sports talk radio for saying
the team was unprepared.
The law enforcement official said the plane had issued a distress call
before the crash.
The FAA said it was too early to determine what might have caused the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators.
"This is a terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the entire Yankees
organization," Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement. He
offered his condolences to Lidle's wife and son.
The crash rattled New Yorkers' nerves five years after the Sept. 11 attacks,
abut the FBI and the Homeland Security quickly said there was no evidence it
was anything but an accident. Nevertheless, within 10 minutes of the crash,
fighter jets were sent aloft over several cities, including New York,
Washington, Los Angeles and Seattle, Pentagon officials said.
The plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit The Belaire - a red-brick
tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from the World Trade
Center - with a loud bang, touching off a raging fire that cast a pillar of
black smoke over the city and sent flames shooting from four windows on two
adjoining floors.
Firefighters put the blaze out in less than an hour.
Large crowds gathered in the street in the largely wealthy New York
neighborhood, with many people in tears and some trying to reach loved ones
by cell phone.
"It wasn't until I was halfway home that I started shaking. The whole memory
of an airplane flying into a building and across the street from your home.
It's a little too close to home," Sara Green, 40, who lives across the
street from The Belair. "It crossed my mind that it was something bigger or
the start of something bigger."
On Sunday, the day after the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs,
Lidle cleaned out his locker at Yankee Stadium and talked about his interest
in flying.
He said he intended to fly back to California in several days and planned to
make a few stops. Lidle disccused the plane crash of John F. Kennedy Jr. and
how he had read the accident report on the National Transportation Safety
Board Web site.
Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, told The New York
Times last month that his four-seat Cirrus SR20 plane 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."
Lidle pitched 1 1/3 innings in the fourth and final game of the Division
Series against the Detroit Tigers and gave up three earned runs, but was not
the losing pitcher. He had a 12-10 regular-season record with a 4.85 ERA.
He pitched with the Phillies before coming to the Yankees. Began his career
in 1997 with the Mets. He also pitched for Tampa Bay, Oakland, Toronto and
Cincinnati.
The guarantee language of Lidle's $6.3 million, two-year contract, signed
with the Phillies in November 2004, contained a provision saying the team
could get out of paying the remainder if he were injured or killed while
piloting a plane. Because the regular season is over, Lidle already had
received the full amount in the deal.
After the Yankees' defeat at the hands of the Tigers, Lidle called in to
WFAN sports-talk radio two days before the crash to defend manager Joe
Torre, and said: "I want to win as much as anybody. But what am I supposed
to do? Go cry in my apartment for the next two weeks."
Lidle was an outcast among some teammates throughout his career because he
became a replacement player in 1995, when major leaguers were on strike.
Among the baseball stars killed in plane crashes were Roberto Clemente,
Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, killed Dec. 31, 1972, at age 38 while en
route to Nicaragua to aid earthquake victims; and Munson, the Yankee catcher
killed Aug. 2, 1979, at age 32 in the crash of his plane in Canton, Ohio.
"It's just sadder than sad," said New York Mets pitching coach Rick
Peterson, who was Lidle's pitching coach in Oakland. "It's horrific. It's
almost unbelievable. It's a surreal moment."
Young May Cha, a 23-year-old Cornell University medical student, said she
was walking back from the grocery store down 72nd Street when she saw
something come across the sky and crash into the building. Cha said there
appeared to be smoke coming from behind the aircraft, and "it looked like it
was flying erratically for the short time that I saw it."
The plane left New Jersey's Teterboro Airport, just across the Hudson River
from the city, at 2:30 p.m., about 15 minutes before the crash, according to
officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates
the airport. But they said they did not where the aircraft was headed.
Former NTSB director Jim Hall said in a telephone interview he doesn't
understand how a plane could get so close to a New York City building after
Sept. 11.
"We're under a high alert and you would assume that if something like this
happened, people would have known about it before it occurred, not after,"
Hall said.
Mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark, daughter of author Mary Higgins Clark,
lives on the 38th floor and was coming home in a cab when she saw the smoke.
"Thank goodness I wasn't at my apartment writing at the time," she said. She
described the building's residents as a mix of actors, doctors, lawyers and
writers, and people with second homes.
Despite initial fears of a terrorist attack, all three New York City-area
airports continued to operate normally, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. The
White House said neither President Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney was
moved to secure locations.
The Belaire was built in the late 1980s and is situated near Sotheby's
auction house. It has 183 apartments, many of which sell for more than $1
million.
Several lower floors are occupied by doctors and administrative offices, as
well as guest facilities for family members of patients at the Hospital for
Special Surgery, hospital spokeswoman Phyllis Fisher said.
No patients were in the high-rise building and operations at the hospital a
block away were not affected, Fisher said
