Lidle crash inquiry cites wind, turn angle

A prevailing wind and a turn started too close to the riverbank were factors that caused the plane of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle to crash into a Manhattan high-rise, the National Transportation Safety Board announced Friday.

The agency said Lidle was flying in his single-engine Cirrus SR-20 over the East River when it started a U-turn, leaving the plane only 1,700 feet to avoid the skyline. In addition to the short turn space, the agency said, a 7-mph easterly wind caused the plane to drift 400 feet toward the apartment building that Lidle’s plane struck.

The Oct. 11 crash killed Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger and injured three on the ground.

“We haven’t concluded that wind was the cause of the accident. … To say it’s being blamed or that’s the cause of the accident is premature,” NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said, emphasizing that a final report could take a year.

Still, the agency said in its update that as the plane flew at 111 mph, it would have needed a constant 53-degree bank to clear Manhattan buildings in the wind. If the pilot initially used a turn that wasn’t as sharp, and later tried to compensate with a hard turn, the plane’s engine could have failed, the NTSB found.

“If the initial portion of the turn was not this aggressive, a sufficiently greater bank angle would have been needed,” Holloway said, “which would have placed the airplane dangerously close to an aerodynamic stall.”

Holloway said the agency has not determined who was behind the controls during the crash: the novice pilot Lidle, or the seasoned flier Stanger.

The next steps in the probe will include the examination of autopsy information and a pair of damaged global positioning units, and a review of a U.S. Coast Guard video that shows the plane’s impact with the building.