Syzdekistan

I was shocked and saddened by today’s crash of Kevin Lidle’s Cirrus SR20 today in Manhattan. The only good thing is that no one was killed in the building despite a pretty severe fire. The plane didn’t penetrate the building and the fire didn’t spread too far. Since most of the injuries were of firefighters falling on a staircase with water cascading down it, I wonder if the building was equipped with a sprinkler system. In any case, NPR was reporting that residents on some floors were being allowed back into the building.

Phillip Greensun’s blog has some believable conjecture regarding the cause of the crash. He is experienced in flying in New York’s very complex airspace and thinks that Lidle and his instructor were following a scenic VFR route up the East River. They blundered into or too close to La Guardia’s airspace, tried to make a low and slow 180 degree turn, and stalled the aircraft.