10.13.2006

My theory on the NY condo crash

For what it's worth, I have built a theory about why the Yankees pitcher and his 26 year old instructor crashed into the condo on Manhattan.

He was a very low-time pilot - brand new in fact. His instructor was competent, but young, and not an urban pilot. They were flying into one of the busiest, tightest stretches of VFR flight space in the country. (VFR partially meaning that you don't have any oversight by the FAA - Visual Flight Rules: you're on your own and responsible for your own traffic separation.)

They were sightseeing up the river with building tops above them - they were only at 700 feet. And they were flying rapidly toward the controlled airspace for LaGuardia. It was just like a box canyon. They initiated - as I'm sure they planned - a 180 degree turn to head back down river. They were going remarkably slow at the time the turn began - about 110 miles per hour. This is where I think stuff got off track.

My suspicion is that the instructor was looking at maps and/or instruments, maybe punching something into the big GPS moving map built into the airplane. The turn would have to be very tight, and I would imagine it got tighter as Lidle saw the buildings rapidly getting bigger.

Tight turns at slow speed are where lots of accidents happen. The wing stalls at a much higher speed in a turn. Steeper the turn, higher the stall speed. I'm guessing the instructor looked up and realized how slow and how tight they were turning, saw Lidle was now losing altitude, and told him to level out, figuring flying between buildings illegally was better than stalling.

The problem in a steep turn, of course, is you can't see through the wing that's tilted up to know what you're near. I'm guessing they hurriedly rolled out to level, there was the building, and that was that.

My friend Stockton's theory is similar, but he imagines the instructor grabbed the controls, with the pitcher and his incredibly strong pitching arm, turning left, and the instructor turning right, thus locking into a no-turn situation.

From the time the turn started to the end of the flight was seconds. Maybe ten. Tension, testosterone, and hard decisions to be made by two take-control guys.

...shiver...

Unless something new turns up, that is my theory.

If you live in the NW and have a dog, you should subscribe to City Dog Magazine. It's great. (And not just because Red has her own column in every issue.) This is the latest.
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10.12.2006

Fall. It's just like spring, but with a bad ending.

Red huffing steam, having just churned up the hill from the beach.

A ship at anchor south of Magnolia, waiting for its turn in the port.

Just perfect today. September and October can be so amazing here. This year is exemplary.

These shots from a morning walk with Red today. (No rats were harmed in the making of these pictures.) The leaves are taking their time turning this year. Summer just doesn't want to let go. But the grip will be forced open days from now.

10.11.2006

Don't hit buildings. They're hard and full of people.

I don't know what happened.

But what I do know is even IF something is wrong with your airplane, you don't try to land in the side of a building. You land in the river right next to the building.

Mechanical issue or not... airplanes don't hit buildings. Pilots hit buildings.



PS: if the radio transmission he made just before the crash doesn't say what was wrong...we'll almost certainly never know. Fire. All gone.

I miss the south

When I was 20 and 21 I lived just under a year in Australia. I lived mainly in the Western Australia outback, working in mining camps and aboriginal communities, putting in very rudimentary satellite systems. Everything I owned was stained rust-red from the dust.

After 10 months there, I spent three weeks going back to the US. CU Boulder had accepted me to enter as a junior, to rejoin the other world. The one I was from.

My trip back spent a good deal of the money I had made. I don't think I intended that, but I don't think I cared; it was a journey. I went to New Guinnea and hung out with a friend of a friend. Then to the island nation of Nauru. Then to the Solomon Islands, where I simply didn't know what to do. I rented a car, and they told me it could not be driven on dirt roads. I found out there was only about two miles of pavement on the island. I broke the rules (and I got a flat). I remember lush lush lush green, and rusting pieces of WWII still visible in the vegetation along the beaches and in the water. And geckos, by which I was fascinated.

My last stop was Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, where I spent all but two dollars. I timed my hotels and meals and drinks so that penury coincided with departure. What did I care? I was one flight away from the US, and $500 I had in a bank there.

I arrived at the rudimentary, open-air airport building to find that there was a departure tax of $20, and no discussion about my stupidity for having only $2 left in my pocket.

Wandering around trying to think of some solution - anything but a desperate telegram home - I came upon a .25 cent poker machine in the bar, like the ones you find in Vegas. In the hour before my flight would depart and leave me behind, I gambled my $2 into $25, got on the plane, and ended up in Honolulu at 6 a.m. with just enough for a bus ride into Oahu. I sat in front of the bank until 10, when they opened, and took out enough to stay two nights.

And all this comes about because I just saw a thing on Slate about harvesting worms in Samoa; looking at the houses and the trees, and the grass - everywhere in the south pacific the grass was as coarse as soda straws - and it took me back.

That was a while ago.

10.08.2006


Give the finger to the rock and roll singer
As he's dancing upon your paycheck
The sales climb high through the garbage pail sky
Like a giant dildo crushing the sun

-Beck, pop genius, Scientologist, very rich white guy

Friend Cynthia took me to see a panel at Town Hall last night. Janine Garafallo, Duncan of Atrios, and a few other blogger/writers, all talking about the evils of the media and how ruined it all is and how desperately trashed this country is now and why the old-style media will never get better... They're striving for change, though they made it sound a lot like they were shoveling against the tide armed only with teacups. It was interesting, but I'm sure Dick Cheney in his lair slept like a rock.
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