Just caught that a small aircraft crashed into a NYC highrise--no details yet.http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4649965Edit--now the story suggests a helicopter was involved-John

Update: Small plane, reported as Cirrus-20. NY Yankee's picture, Cory Liddle is listed as the owner, and is confirmed dead.http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2621860bt

Looks like a Cirrus SR-20, NBC4 New York says it was registered to Yankees Pitcher Corey Lidle, and his passport was found in the street.Not a whole lot of room to maneuver around the East River there with the requirements.http://www.wnbc.com/news/10053779/detail.htmlSad day for Aviation and Yankees fans. ALso heard there was a medical center on the lower floors of the building.Joe

HiHave to wonder what the #### a lowtime (75hr)pilot is doing around Manhatten on a marginal vfr day.Very sad though.Pete

What's wrong with this plane? I did a search on the net a few weeks ago. It had so many accidents, a bad stall and spin characteristic. Comparing to the Columbia 400, it looks like a inferior design.

Ironically; his Cirrus was equipped with a parachute able to lower the entire aircraft to the ground; but it didn't do him any good...Best Regards, Donny :-waveFLYing? It's cool. Trillions of birds and insects can't be wrong.

Guess we've got the first winner of the Thurman Munson trophy...at least they're keeping it in the Yankee franchise.Bob Scott

I'm having trouble understanding this one-the cirrus sr20 has one of the best displays (situational awareness) of any aircraft and the reports say an instructor was onboard. If the engine failed, or even a control issue-I would think the parachute would have been deployed.Very strange....http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

What a plonker. Talks about how great the plane's chute system is and then flys low level in bad weather through Manhattan - with an instructor no less.In absense of all the facts, the situation still seems pretty idiotic.

There are many more situations where the BRS would not be deployed versus those situations where it would be used.This almost sounds like a CFIT issue or a case of both 'pilots' possibly fixating on a possible serious problem without anyone actually flying the plane.The SR is also a very slick a/c and hard to slow down. Maybe they ran out of room in the turn also while trying to dignose their problem.There's to many other variables that we may never know about this one folks.

We are going to have to wait a few months for the FAA report to come out. As there is no flight recorders, the real cause of the accident might not be unearthed.

A chute is no good if you forget to use it...

"This almost sounds like a CFIT issue or a case of both 'pilots' possibly fixating on a possible serious problem without anyone actually flying the plane."I think you hit the nail on the head here Jeff. After the mayday was called about the fuel problem the plane pitched nose up and rolled to the left (typical stall). It fully rolled over and then nosed down heading toward the building. That alone most likely scared the heck out of them... If they were on top of it the plane wouldn't have stalled in the first place, they could have deployed the chute. Another option depending on altitude is they could have stair stepped it down. Either way an accident like this is almost impossible if both those guys were paying attention to everything around them. You can't get any safer than an aircraft with a parachute on board but you have to remember that option if you get in trouble.

The chute also does no good if none of the occupants had the time nor realized they were going to need it. You have no clue as to what was happening in that aircraft. Things could have happened so fast that there wasn't time to make a decision as to whether or not to pull it, and given their altitude, even if they did have time to think about it, they may have thought they were too low and/or that by pulling it they would actually cause more harm and damage/injury to themselves or other property or people in an uncontrolled fall if they knew already they were in the midst of the buildings.Even in an engine out situation so long as a somewhat safe landing could be assured, even off field, I'd probably rather go that route, rather than risk even more damage to the A/C or possible injury using the BRS. I would like to think that if it were me, I'd rather use it if I had a loss of flight control more so then an engine out.The chute is not a magic solution when things go wrong. The situation has to be right and planning has to happen also, believe it or not. You may think you'd just pull that thing when the time came, but I bet you'd sure think about it long and hard before doing so. I suspect some pilots may actually not pull it at all out of some sort of fear that it may not set the aircraft down in the manner they want it.In any case, we may never know what was going on in the cockpit, nor what they were thinking about, nor who was flying at the time, etc., etc., etc.It's a sad tragedy, that's for sure.

The chute, like ejection seats, has a definite window in which it is safe to use.A study I saw recently (AOPA?) of Cirrus accidents came to the conclusion that most people fight to save the aircraft until the bird is outside the envelope for deploying the chute.Part of the reluctance to deploy the chute was attributed to the knowledge that the aircraft would be a writeoff.The chute is extremely valuable for one situation - when a controlled forced landing is unavoidable - and there is no possible safe landing area. Fuel starvation, engine failure, control failure, etc.But the decision to use the chute must be made early. You can't work the problem down to 400 ft AGL and then expect the chute to deploy in time to save you.Has anyone heard how high the aircraft was before it's final plunge?The collision with the building would have been 330-400 ft AGL.