Wind may have caused Lidle crash

New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor apparently did not anticipate the strength of a crosswind when they turned left, an error that could explain how their plane strayed near tall buildings and crashed into a condominium tower, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The preliminary analysis is the closest authorities have come to determining why Lidle and his friend and instructor, Tyler Stanger, crashed into a building Oct. 11 during a sightseeing excursion up the narrow East River corridor in New York. Both men died in the crash.

So far, investigators have found no mechanical defects in Lidle’s plane.

New Orleans

Suicide’s note leads to body

A note found on the body of a suicide jumper led police to a French Quarter apartment where they found a woman’s charred head in a pot, her arms and legs in the oven and her torso in the refrigerator, police said Wednesday.

Zackery Bowen, 28, leapt from the seventh floor of a luxury hotel in the Quarter on Tuesday night, police said. His note, found in his pocket, identified the woman as his girlfriend but did not mention her name.

The body was found in the second-floor apartment that Bowen and his girlfriend, Adriane Hall, had shared on the edge of the Quarter above a voodoo shop, according to the landlord. Authorities did not speculate on the identity of the dismembered woman.

Hackensack, N.J.

Thieves carjack mayor’s Lexus

Two thieves pummeled a personal employee of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and carjacked the billionaire’s Lexus on Wednesday morning in New Jersey.

Within hours, authorities found the mayor’s 2001 gray Lexus abandoned, with no apparent damage, on a street a few miles from the scene of the Hackensack carjacking.

The two suspects were on the loose Wednesday night, but investigators said they have no reason to believe the thieves knew the car belonged to Bloomberg.

The carjack drama unfolded just before 8:45 a.m. when Gradimir Bosnjak, 62, one of Bloomberg’s household employees, was sitting alone in the mayor’s Lexus in Hackensack. He was there to pick up the maid of the mayor’s ex-wife and drive her to Manhattan.

A woman wearing a nose ring approached the driver’s door window and asked Bosnjak for money. He said no and was closing the window when a man jumped into the car through the front passenger door.

A struggle ensued, but the two thieves ultimately forced Bosnjak out of the mayor’s car.

Buffalo, N.Y.

Extra nurses sent after snowstorm

New York state sent extra nurses Wednesday to help out at busy hospitals treating people for injuries related to last week’s record-setting snowstorm, which knocked out power to thousands and was blamed for 12 deaths.

More than 170 people have been treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from using improperly vented generators and stoves for heat. Others have hurt themselves or had heart attacks clearing mounds of tree limbs that litter the region.

Health officials said the deaths include one person hit by a falling tree limb, three killed by carbon monoxide and two who died shoveling snow.

With round-the-clock cleanup efforts continuing, about 95,000 homes and businesses remained without power Wednesday and schools in Buffalo and surrounding towns said they would be unable to reopen until next week.