Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Aircraft crashes into NYC building

stuartluff said:
So was he looking for a lost ball or is he just a crap pilot?
Click to expand...

"crap" and "not wise" are two different things. If they really were goofing around and pullings stunts over NY, they could have stalled out, gone into a dive, and while you can recover, your options for direction are either very few, or not at the top of your mind when you are heading towards the ground nose first. They could have pulled up right into the building :(
 
Don't they have clauses in their contracts prohibiting dangerous behaviors like that during the season? Didn't anyone learn from this summer's Big Ben incident in Pittsburgh?
 
Angelus520 said:
Don't they have clauses in their contracts prohibiting dangerous behaviors like that during the season? Didn't anyone learn from this summer's Big Ben incident in Pittsburgh?
Click to expand...

As you mrenitoned, season over. But I'd think the bigger issue would be pulling acrobatic stuns over a populated area. There are very strict FAA rules on that sort of stuff.

Fuel problems (aside from running out of gas) can be caused if you do acrobatics in a plane not designed for it.
i.e. most small planes are designed with gravity feed fuel lines.
They also funtion about as well as most car engines when inverted :\
 
Earendil said:
"crap" and "not wise" are two different things. If they really were goofing around and pullings stunts over NY, they could have stalled out, gone into a dive, and while you can recover, your options for direction are either very few, or not at the top of your mind when you are heading towards the ground nose first. They could have pulled up right into the building :(
Click to expand...

I must admit i missed the post about stunt flying :eek: but still its freakin Manhattan. The most dangerous place to fly a plane.
 
Mayor Bloomberg is on the telly at the moment giving a press conference – he says that they've identified the two who perished on the plane as an instructor and a student pilot, and that they're unsure who actually had control of the plane at the time of the accident.

He's not actually named anyone yet – he was asked specifically about Lidle – until relatives are notified.
 
stuartluff said:
I must admit i missed the post about stunt flying :eek: but still its freakin Manhattan. The most dangerous place to fly a plane.
Click to expand...

the plane may have had problems, not actually been flying stunts.

we dont know
 
i saw this on CNN... that's so sad. Anderson Cooper seemed unfazed as he described Lidel's passport blowing around the scene and the scorch marks on buildings, he seemed like a robot....:eek:
 
rockthecasbah said:
i saw this on CNN... that's so sad. Anderson Cooper seemed unfazed as he described Lidel's passport blowing around the scene and the scorch marks on buildings, he seemed like a robot....:eek:
Click to expand...

Cooper rocks...and this is really nothing to him...he has been on the ground during war, I'm pretty sure he has gone to Iraq and seen car bombs there. While is not good, its not much compared to the pain and suffering in other places in the world
 
Jaffa Cake said:
Mayor Bloomberg is on the telly at the moment giving a press conference – he says that they've identified the two who perished on the plane as an instructor and a student pilot, and that they're unsure who actually had control of the plane at the time of the accident.
Click to expand...

Doesn't much matter. If one person in the airplane is a flight instructor and the other is a student pilot, the flight instructor is by definition the pilot in command.

Slamming into a building -- this is so difficult to imagine. Those things are pretty easy to avoid.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Doesn't much matter. If one person in the airplane is a flight instructor and the other is a student pilot, the flight instructor is by definition the pilot in command.

Slamming into a building -- this is so difficult to imagine. Those things are pretty easy to avoid.
Click to expand...


Which means that unless they were playing marko-pollo and flying blind, something must have gone terribly wrong with the plane. Wether it was a mechanical failure or pilot error will have to be determined.

The flight instructor may be in charge, but he/she would have little power to stop a student from doing just about anything with the plane, aside from using pure strength and knocking the person unconscious.
A student pilot has access to all the same controls the pilot does (or pretty nearly).

~Tyler
 
Earendil said:
Which means that unless they were playing marko-pollo and flying blind, something must have gone terribly wrong with the plane. Wether it was a mechanical failure or pilot error will have to be determined.

The flight instructor may be in charge, but he/she would have little power to stop a student from doing just about anything with the plane, aside from using pure strength and knocking the person unconscious.
A student pilot has access to all the same controls the pilot does (or pretty nearly).

~Tyler
Click to expand...

Something going wrong with the airplane seems unlikely, but then no cause appears very likely in this accident.

Normally, a student pilot sits in the pilot's (left) seat and the instructor sits in the right seat. They both have access to the controls. A student pilot not turning over control of the airplane to the instructor in an emergency -- now that would be highly unusual.

EDIT

I just heard that the airplane was a Cirrus SR-20. FWIW, this is one of the very few airplanes that is equipped with a ballistic parachute system. If something had gone terribly wrong with the airplane, the chute would or at least could have been deployed. As for fuel problems, I've also heard in reports that the prop was spinning when the airplane hit the building.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Something going wrong with the airplane seems unlikely, but then no cause appears very likely in this accident.

Normally, a student pilot sits in the pilot's (left) seat and the instructor sits in the right seat. They both have access to the controls. A student pilot not turning over control of the airplane to the instructor in an emergency -- now that would be highly unusual.
Click to expand...

Agreed, now handing back control, or forcing control for the student's own purposes, all seems unlikely. However more unlikely that both of those is a plane flying into a building.

Unlikely results generally aren't created by ordinary causes.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Something going wrong with the airplane seems unlikely, but then no cause appears very likely in this accident.
Click to expand...

Which is what makes this accident (if it is indeed an accident) so strange. Normally we can think of at least one or two highly plausible explanations for any given accident. But this just seems so weird, especially considering that the aircraft crashed nearly dead center into a skyscraper.


IJ Reilly said:
I just heard that the airplane was a Cirrus SR-20. FWIW, this is one of the very few airplanes that is equipped with a ballistic parachute system. If something had gone terribly wrong with the airplane, the chute would or at least could have been deployed.
Click to expand...

Of course parachute systems can only be deployed above a certain altitude. If they were tooling around at low altitude (likely), then it wouldn't have helped much if there was a serious problem with the aircraft.
 
aquajet said:
Which is what makes this accident (if it is indeed an accident) so strange. Normally we can think of at least one or two highly plausible explanations for any given accident. But this just seems so weird, especially considering that the aircraft crashed nearly dead center into a skyscraper.
Click to expand...

One private pilot eye-witness said he saw the airplane maneuvering hard before it hit the building. Also, an emergency was declared although the nature of the emergency if known hasn't been released yet AFAIK. The only plausible explanation that doesn't involve deliberate action is some kind of catastrophic control system failure. Another Cirrus SR-20 had one of these a few years ago -- a partially detached aileron if memory serves. The pilot deployed the chute.

Of course parachute systems can only be deployed above a certain altitude. If they were tooling around at low altitude (likely), then it wouldn't have helped much if there was a serious problem with the aircraft.
Click to expand...

The chute is deployed ballistically, which means it's literally shot by a rocket, through the roof of the cabin. I'm pretty certain it can be deployed at nearly any altitude. I have to say though that most pilots would be very reluctant to deploy the chute unless they'd completely lost control of the airplane and were certain they could not regain it.

BTW, not restricted airspace, but controlled.
 
Rickay726 said:
weird that today is 10/11? in realiton to 9/11 very coincidental
Click to expand...
Not really. You have a 3.2% chance of it falling on the 11th day of the month :)
 
IJ Reilly said:
As for fuel problems, I've also heard in reports that the prop was spinning when the airplane hit the building.
Click to expand...

Doesn't take much for the airflow to keep the propeller rotating. During my multi-engine training I was amazed at the ability for the prop to continue to spin when we shut the one engine down. It wasn't until we feathered the prop that it stopped.

IJ Reilly said:
I have to say though that most pilots would be very reluctant to deploy the chute unless they'd completely lost control of the airplane and were certain they could not regain it.
Click to expand...

Personally, if I had spent that much on a single engine aircraft I would pull the shoot at the first sign of problems at that low of an altitude.

Edit: But obviously I wasn't there so I cannot say what I would have done in the same situation. The pilot on board has split seconds to make the best decisions he can come up with. While the NTSB get years to decide what should have been done.
 
tvguru said:
NYT has a nice interactive graphic showing the sequence of the flight.
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/10/11/nyregion/20061011_CRASH_GRAPHIC.html
Click to expand...

The fact that the plane was -at all times- over water, and hit a building that is right on the river bank suggests that it was either somehow intentional or a very bad pilot error. The fact that they say the plane never climbed over 800 feet could suggest either. It does, however, indicate that it is very unlikely that the crash into a building was due to a glitch with the planes controls. It could have been the case that there was a mechanical failure that prevented the plane from gaining altitude, but it still would have been the pilot's fault that it hit a building.
 
Chaszmyr said:
The fact that the plane was -at all times- over water, and hit a building that is right on the river bank suggests that it was either somehow intentional or a very bad pilot error. The fact that they say the plane never climbed over 800 feet could suggest either. It does, however, indicate that it is very unlikely that the crash into a building was due to a glitch with the planes controls. It could have been the case that there was a mechanical failure that prevented the plane from gaining altitude, but it still would have been the pilot's fault that it hit a building.
Click to expand...

While I don't know the altitude restrictions of the area, I would suspect it would be much the same as in Canada where you must remain 500' above any person, vessel or structure. Unless it is considered a built up area whereby you are then required to be 1000' above the highest structure in the build up area. If you don't consider the bridges a built up area and only a structure then, assuming the bridges are about 300' tall, 800' would be sufficient for the flight while over the water.

Even if the pilot let go of the controls for the entire trip up the river, I would find it hard to believe that the plane would make that sharp of a maneuver on it's own. Usually if you have the plane all trimmed up properly for straight an level flight the plane will continue unless acted on by wind sheer or turbulence. For the pilot to make that large of a turn to end up in the building, I would say he would nearly have to fall asleep on the controls or do it intentionally. I doubt it was intentional as why would you take your flight instructor with you?

My only conclusion is that there was a mechanical problem with the aileron controls of the aircraft, but even in that case the very slick parachute system could be deployed.

Needless to say this appears to be a very puzzling crash and I eagerly await more information as it comes forth.

Sorry I ended up rambling, hope it all makes sense. :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back