A Popular Mechanics article, by pilot Jeff Wise, on the possible cause of the Cory Lidle crash in Manhattan.
For pilots taking off from Teterboro, a general aviation airport in New Jersey, 12 miles north of midtown Manhattan, the typical procedure is to head east under the control of Teterboro tower and then switch frequency to a radio channel that’s monitored by everyone going up and down the Hudson. At the Alpine Tower, a radio mast on a New Jersey cliff overlooking the Hudson, you turn right and descend to 1,000 feet and then follow the west bank. It’s like driving down a highway: southbound traffic on the west (New Jersey) side of the river; northbound on the east (Manhattan) side. The view of the city is incredible: You’re lower than the tops of the highest buildings, and as you pass over the George Washington Bridge linking northern Manhattan and New Jersey, it almost feels like the top of the span might snag your undercarriage.Essentially, you’re flying in what amounts to an invisible tunnel carved out of the heavy-duty Class B airspace that surrounds the region’s three airports: Newark airport, 16 miles southwest of midtown Manhattan; LaGuardia airport, 10 miles east; and JFK airport, 18 miles southeast. Class B is for the big boys—airliners flying heavy loads of passengers at high speeds. Class B is the Carnegie Hall of aviation, the Yankee Stadium. The thought of wandering into it by mistake gives most recreational pilots palpitations.
h/t
Good article, explains it a lot better than the media did that day and afterwards. Although only two people (three if you count the big guy upstairs) will ever know for sure what happened, the forensics and crash investigators can probably come up with a likely scenario. As with all crash investigations, the main focus is not to lay blame but to try and find out what went wrong and to learn from the mistakes made.
I did some Flight Safety in my time in the Can Forces so I can speak with some knowledge. I know for a fact that the investigators really hate to interview witnesses after they have had their fifteen seconds of media fame. News reporters are notorious at getting the eye witness to tell them what they, the reporter thinks happened. Leading questions, finishing sentences for them and other things to get their sound bite tend to distort the actual facts. But then again this sounds like CBC doesn't it?
Maybe he just couldn't throw strikes . . .
Best explanation is that he was trying to kill the Mets third baseman who lives in the building...
Us pilots fly airplanes for many reasons. The aircraft itself is a work of art. It lets one be free-as-a-bird. It is increadably useful. A virtual Magic Carpet ride.
But with all those attributes comes a lot of resposibility. The pilot has to be very disciplined and focused.
Now, of course the media will intentionally go for the hype in finding someone to interview. Even if they have to cull through many bystanders before they find one "suitable" for their purpose. Spin. We have all seen this many times.
IMO, after having read the PM article, my humble take on the circumstances leading to the crash. Only a small percentage of airplane accidents are caused by a malfunctioning aircraft. Only a small percentage of accidents are caused by a physically incompetant pilot(handling of the controls). Most are caused by poor pilot descisions, some while still on the ground. IMO, to take off in a highly built-up area with a low ceiling and with the intention of attempting a 180 turn at end of the "dead end" VFR fly-way was a risky proceedure at best. Add to this the pressure of not wanting to penetrate controlled airspace. In this case the mistake was taking off. My opinion, and my opinion only.
Hypothesis: both heads were down in the cockpit...somebody forgot to fly the airplane.
If it was an emergency/urgency/or 'map study'...one pilot flys, the other deals with the problem.
Just a guess.
flying that corridor it would be easy to get into the equivalent of the box canyon problem . . .
A friend of mine, an amateur pilot who has two planes--a Cessna 180 and a Comanche--and 1000s of hours flying time, told me that he thought a factor in the accident was that the Cirrus SR20 had, at least in part, laminar flow rather than conventionally designed wings.
Apparently a laminar flow wing allows for higher performance than a conventional wing design. The downside is that the stall speed, the speed below which the wing loses sufficient lift and falls out of the sky, is much higher.
One can easily surmise that when Lidle tried to turn around in the narrow confines of the East River, he lost control either because he was forced to keep the airspeed too high to avoid a stall or because the airspeed on at least part of the wing dropped below the stall speed on the turn and he erred in his maneuvres to increase the airspeed and/or to regain control of the plane.
My friend's further comment was that he thought a Cirrus SR20 because of its wing design was too much plane for a 90 hour pilot. Granted the other person in the plane was a flying instructor, but perhaps, not being at the controls, the instructor did not have enough time to help Lidle through the crisis.
I am not a pilot so I cannot judge the truth of my friend's comments. However, I found some support for his view of the problem, starting the 4th paragraph down under the heading "Safety", at the following site:
http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/cirrus-sr20
Incidentally, John F. Kennedy Jr, a pilot of few hours was also flying a plane with a laminar flow
wing design--a Piper Saratoga--when he had his fatal crash although in that case pilot disorientation rather than the difficulties of maneuvring may have had more to do with the crash.
A well written albeit brief article. I'd like to weigh in with some observations. As with most aviation accidents a culmination of factors most often lead to a crash rather than a single cause.
1. The relative inexperience of Lidle probably played a role. 80 some hours is a very low time pilot, many people require more than 100 hours to become competent enough to pass a government flight test for a private pilots license.
2. I read in a recent article that the instructor was not type-checked on the Cirrus SR20 aircraft. According to the article he operated his own flight school which utilized Cessna aircraft specifically C-152's and C-172's.
3. Instructor experience. The instructor was relatively young, somewhere in his twenties. As with many young commercial pilots the instructor route is a way of building up hours in order to be considered for jucier positions. Flying right seat in the capacity of instructor is often typified as hours upon hours of sheer boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Being from the west coast and flying on a sightseeing tour with a famous client I could see the instructor being somewhat less than attentive to his responsibilities as the "check-pilot".
4. Poor weather or marginal VFR is one of the biggest killers of recreational pilots. A VFR (visual flight rules) pilot relies on visual reference to the horizion to maintain the proper attitude of the aircraft. In poor weather conditions this reference can be lost and maintaining control of the aircraft becomes extremely difficult, especially for an inexperienced pilot.
5. Aircraft performance. As Jdill rightly pointed out the CR-20 is a high performance aircraft. With the laminar flow wing comes increased airspeed and a subsequent high stall speed (the speed at which the wing no longer provides lift). As I noted above the instructor was apparantly unfamilar with this aircraft type. The performance of a SR-20 as compared to a C-172 is something akin to a corvette and a chevette. While both are four seat aircraft things happen a lot faster in a SR-20.
6. As the article noted the pressures inherent in keeping traffic separation in a confined airspace coupled with pilot unfamiliarity with the terrain and procedures can become overwhelming. My first few flights into Edmonton and Calgary International airspace were real pressure cookers and that was under ideal weather conditions.
7. Flight crew decision making. As B Hoax Aware pointed out some of the most critical decisions a flight crew can make are made on the ground and the go...no-go decision is probably the most important. Private pilots often suffer from something called get-home-itis, the urge to get going. As I understand it this was to be a quick sightseeing tour before heading out for the long trip home to California. The opportunity to take a sightseeing tour in one of the most breathtaking cities in the world regardless of the poor weather conditions was probably too much to resist, remember the instructor was a west coast resident and would probably never have this opportunity again.
8. The Star Factor. This is not the first time a low time pilot with "star power" has made a fatal mistake with high performance aircraft. As with JFK Junior and Thurmon Munson (with less than 200 hours total time he was flying a Cessna Citation Jet) these men had the financial means to purchase aircraft that were far above their abilities. The average person breaking into flying would not be let near some of these aircraft until they were more seasoned. Most guys/gals work their way up through a logical, steady progression of aircraft types and license endorsements that build skills progressively. Think of it as giving your five year old who just learned how to ride his bike a YZ-80. The results are probably not going to be pretty.
My best guess and it is only a guess. Poor weather, confined airspace, low and slow (altitude and airspeed are your lifeline) a steep turn, an incipient spin and unfortunately they rotated out of the spin and dive for airspeed pointed directly at an apartment building.
Sad and unfortunate. It brings to mind two sayings that were ground into my pumpkin early in my general aviation career.
"Time to spare, go by air." And.... "There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."
Syncro
...speaking of making sense of senseless...sorta OT but related to airplanes:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52447
Thanks to CS pointing this one out.
Good points Syncro...
As a pilot with 450 hours logged, you are pretty much bang on with your assessment that there were multiple issues which caused this tragic accident. None were more important than the other except maybe the decision to go in the first place. I never checked the METAR (weather observations) for the time of the crash, but if the ceiling was that low, it should've been a no-go.
One of the things I learned very early on while getting my license and to this day I speak the very words: "It's always better to be down here wishing I was up there than being up there wishing I was down here".
...one thing I was taught was to be prepared and the diddly...
"you can't stop and ask for directions while up there"