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"  A report released today by the National Transportation Safety Board confirms that Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle&amp;#039;s October crash joins a long, and tragic, line of accidents caused by pilot error. On Oct. 11, 2006, Lidle, a 34-year-old pitcher for the New York Yankees and recently certified private pilot, was flying with Tyler Stanger, his 26-year-old flight instructor. Both men were killed when Lidle&amp;#039;s Cirrus SR-20 slammed into a midtown Manhattan high-rise. The apartment building stands on the east side of the island, adjacent to the abrupt dead-end of an airspace corridor over the East River. &amp;quot;The pilots&amp;#039; inadequate planning, judgment, and airmanship in the performance of a 180-degree turn maneuver inside of a limited turning space&amp;quot; led to the crash, according to the NTSB. No system, structural or engine malfunctions were found by investigators.  As Jeff Wise, a contributing editor at PM and a private pilot who has flown that corridor, described shortly after the crash, a sliver of VFR, or Visual Flight Rules, airspace extends north up the river\u2014to a point. Private planes were allowed to fly the corridor provided they kept their altitude under 1100 ft., but about halfway up Manhattan Island, the corridor runs into LaGuardia Airport&amp;#039;s Class B airspace. Lidle and Stanger would have had to get prior permission from the airport&amp;#039;s control tower to fly through. So they tried to turn around. (Listen to Wise describe the airspace involved in the accident on the Popular Mechanics Show podcast.) According to the NTSB, they began their U-turn &amp;quot;in the middle of the East Channel \u2026 as opposed to beginning the turn from the eastern shoreline.&amp;quot; Additionally, winds from the East forced the aircraft toward Manhattan and shortened the lateral turning area even more. Investigators determined the pilots misjudged the necessary bank angle. One costly question remains unanswered, however. &amp;quot;Due to the complex accident forces involved in the crash sequence&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;the lack of a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder, it was not possible to determine who was the pilot in control during the accident flight or if flight instruction was being given,&amp;quot; according to the NTSB.  Five weeks ago, Cory Lidle&amp;#039;s widow sued MetLife Inc., claiming she is owed Major League Baseball&amp;#039;s accidental death benefit of $1.05 million. That policy contains exclusions for &amp;quot;any incident related to travel in an aircraft \u2026 while acting in any capacity other than as a passenger.&amp;quot; As for how the NTSB&amp;#039;s findings with affect other pilots, the Safety Board recommended the Federal Aviation Administration, &amp;quot;Permanently prohibit visual flight rules flight operations involving fixed-wing, nonamphibious aircraft in the New York East River class B exclusion area unless those operations are authorized and being controlled by air traffic control.&amp;quot; That would mean pilots having to call LaGuardia airport before venturing anywhere up the river. Though perhaps that&amp;#039;s a better solution than some alternatives proposed.  As Wise initially wrote about the crash: &amp;quot;Some people who aren&amp;#039;t pilots don&amp;#039;t understand why some of us risk our lives for what seems to be a pointless thrill. For them, the logical course of action would be to shut down the VFR flyway to prevent more deaths. But pilots see things differently. To us, flying is a great privilege that, yes, carries a certain amount of inherent risk. But living in the presence of danger and accepting responsibility for it is one of the things that makes life meaningful. We don&amp;#039;t want to live in a world that&amp;#039;s foolproof and accident-free. We want one where prudence and respect can be rewarded with an indescribable freedom\u2014a freedom that too few people are lucky enough to enjoy. &amp;quot;The appropriate response to the death of Lidle and Stanger is not to ban similar flights. It&amp;#039;s for fellow pilots to study what happened, learn from it, and go on to be safer flyers.&amp;quot; \u2014Davin Coburn Two NYPD Traffic officers watch over the intersection of 72nd Street and 1st Avenue in New York on Oct. 11, 2006, as the crash-site building looms over them. PM contributor Jeff Wise followed Lidle&amp;#039;s flightpath, beginning at the southern tip of Manhattan.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a1611/4216247/>