As an ALPA-trained airline accident investigator, I am blown away by this:

9/11/2001: NYC's World Trade Center suicide hijacker's passport found on street below.

8/11/2006: NY Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's passport found on street below hi-rise crash site of Cirrus single-engine aircraft on upper east side of NYC.

I don't doubt this, nor do I don any tin-foil. I am just blown away by the statistical chances of this happening. I'd guess that it is on the magnitude of 10 to the -12th .. or less.

BTW: The AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) will be spinning like a top tomorrow to try to protect small private aircrafts' access to this type of airspace. Mark my word.

But maybe it was still 10/10 out there in Paradise!

:hi:

this crash occured 2 months ago??

I know, I'm a smart ass....LOL..

Come, we go bar, my treat

That one slipped right by me. Sorry!

Mac

...taking off from TEB at a normal rate of climb, and then suddenly losing alt over Central Park. Could he have climbed into IFR conditions and lost it?:shrug:

Was he VFR or IFR at that time?

:shrug:

Marginal VFR often becomes IFR very quickly. Hell, good VFR can go to IFR quickly, too.

...fortunately, my CFI trained me well and I 180'd out of it.:thumbsup:

17,000+ hours
15,000+ jet
250+ #combat missions
200+ students (as CFII/ME/Glider)

My survival technique? THE 180-DEGREE TURN!

I've run into a few similar ones. Going into IAD one summer afternoon descending down to 8000 got
a vector (one of those times you can't even figure out just where the hell you really ARE) following
ATC...hit the edge of a TRW+ maybe even a tornado, it tossed us over a 90 deg bank - no shit-...
I doped out which way was up and did the 180, called center and said "I've reversed course here,
sorry but had to". No problem (for me)...that wasn't my first love affair with ATC but it kept it
alive. ;-)

Ok, what was the weather in NYC like before the crash?

That would determine a lot of things

mid York, I don't know if it was windy down in the City or not.

I wonder if the plane hit a severe up/down draft, on the news observers
said the plane turned left abrubtly and hit the building.........

The plane explodes into a fireball, yet they find his undamaged passport on the street? Bullshit.

:eyes:

Lemme guess - you think ROVE did it?

Amazing the amount of paper debris that survives the fireball.

And if you watched the 9-11 video there was a tremendous amount of paper that was blown out of the WTC buildings by the planes crashing in to them.

Here's debris photos from today's crash.

For a light plane, the gas tanks are in the wings. It is entirely
possible that in a flight-speed crash into a fixed vertical object,
the cockpit of the plane would be absolutely shattered *BEFORE*
the wings impacted the building and allowed the fuel tanks to
rupture. Then, the fireball would only commence once that fuel
reached an ignition source.

Tesha

without a problem.... 9-11 no way...

I believe it because there's actual debris with this crash (unlike at the Pentagon).

the big chunks of airplane?



:eyes:

Where's the rest of it? Or did it just liquify on contact with the building?

No wait, it was actually a missile and "they" scattered scraps of plane about to fool us. Yes, that's it, that makes much more sense.

:eyes:

Especially the "Official Story" were supposed to take without question because it was on tv.

Some guys flying a plane into the pentagon is pretty nonsensical, but I suspect you're talking about something else here.

...

Many composit components that basically burn like plastic.

-Hoot

so called london train bombings, the same "terrorist's" driver's license was magically found in two different places at the scene. Obviously the planters got mixed up as to who would do the planting. Ooops.

Major wierdness in NYC!!! What the Hell do they make these passports outta, Kevlar???

I think it's interesting as well but hardly indicative of a conspiracy.

Eggs-actly!

But have we got confirmation that the passport was found today?

Sounds like a silly rumor.

Whether it is true or not. TV.

But why's an investigator like you worrying about what they're saying on TV?

very much:applause:

:sarcasm:

There is a convenience involved in the 911 passport, while none needs to be applied to the Lidle passport being found...we know it was him. Top that off by the fact that an FBI agent found the 911 passport. Even more unbelievable odds.

I'd bet if an FBI agent found it - it wasn't just lying on the street but probably among the plane debris at the base of the building

It is entirely feasible that the front end plowed in and the disintigrated back end/bottom/cargo hit the wall and fell down... Gravity sucks and things fall down...

There weren't any civilians searching for evidence. And what is your evidence that an FBI agent found it? I never heard that.

I remember it from when it happen and what was reported.

Listening to CNN tonight only the propeller and engine entered the apartment, rest of plane and the 2 bodies ended up on the street.

The passport was probably recovered from the body.
How Atta's passport survived that inferno without a singe is odd though.

Maybe the stuff at the pilots area of a plane gets blown out the sides before the full mass of the plane finally enters the building?

Like maybe there's some weird phenemenon that happens up at the cone when the plane accordians up.

maybe not.

Unless he had in his luggage and the luggage was in the plane. He may have been heading back home to CA after this jaunt. I would think he'd have his passport in NY cause the Yankees do travel to Canada during the season.

I traveled abroad this summer, and never took it out of my purse.

Might be different for a guy, though -- guys don't usually haul lots of extraneous crap around.

to travel outside the USA.
:eyes:

All I was saying is that sometimes people have passports whether they "need" them or not.

Here, I'm not going to roll my eyes. I'll give ya something better: :beer:

:D

Here's one for you

:toast:

;-)

:eyes:

And, yes, I've done quite a bit of traveling (not outside of the country, of course- but that's the point. He wasn't leaving the country.)

it's an old habit from when I lived in Hong Kong. That is a small country, and I'd often go to Macau on a whim. (It's only an hour boatride, and it was a different country, before Hong Kong and Macau were both taken over by the Chinese government.) So, I carry my passport in my purse wherever I go now.

It's not that unusual. Some people carry it with them wherever they go, particularly if they are traveling.

leaving the country for so much as a weekend on the spur of the moment, as a Yankee pitcher could afford to do, you keep it with you.

:popcorn:

Unless I missed some very well hidden sarcasm...

n/t

Bahamas, Bermuda, Mexico, Jamaica, etc.?

The season was over for him, what should he do with it, send by Fedex to his home in California?
jeez...

And plenty of drivers keep their license in their car,
so why wouldn't a pilot keep his passport in his plane?

This doesn't seem at all odd to me.

I always have my passport with me, and I've never been anywhere except Canada.

OnEdit: May as well mention the reason is that a passport is excellent ID in those situations where you are required to show two forms of photo ID. It actually saved my butt once as I was not told I needed 2 photo IDs when I showed up for orientation at a new job.

You also never know when it might just be time to up and get the hell out.

Not unusual at all. Maybe he was thinking of going up to Canada, which currently doesn't REQUIRE a passport, but will in January.

forgive me, i must be missing something, is this person not an american citizen flying in new york

why on earth would he need a passport?

i only use my passport when flying across international boundaries, silly me

i wonder if he was really the one flying the plane or if we'll ever know

okay, i'm reading the other posts and to me it's still a little shaky, i've been on 4 continents, and no i don't just carry a passport everywhere i go in case right that minute in the middle of my flying lesson class i have to flee the country

i mean, paranoid much?

The season's over, he has a wife and child who aren't flying with him, and by all accounts this was just a training flight. I've had a passport for 10 years and I never carry it with me unless I'm heading out of the country. Even when I lived abroad I was told not to carry it on my person because it's as easily stolen as a wallet or purse.

There's probably a reasonable explanation, though. NY is not their home, CA is. Perhaps he and his family were on their way to or from a vacation outside the US.

...required for civilian pilots entering restricted areas and/or the flight-line of mid-sized airports in and around New York, D.C. etc. IIRC, there was increased security for even civilian pilots after 9/11.

I fly out a rural rinky dink field so I wouldn't' know.

Maybe it is a new security requirement for NYC airspace as you suggest. There was an awful lot of concern about terrorists using small aircraft following 9-11.

Sad accident. As somebody else said, if only they'd start making planes out of whatever they make passports from.

when I fly within the USA.

Some people carry it with them. I don't understand why this is such a scandal that he had his passport!

but that the FAA (I think that was the organization) fought her tooth and nail and it ended up being overturned in court.

aircraft shouldn't have access airspace over dense metropolitan areas. It's kind of like arguing with NRA types who don't want to restrict gun ownership to gang bangers.

......planes over dense metro areas??????

Is there an epidemic of small planes crashing in to city buildings?

I've been a private pilot for 20 years. I have a morbid fascination with plane crashes but I don't recall any epidemic of crashes in to city high-rises????

I can recall a similar incident sometime in the 70s of a small plane hitting a Chicago lake front high-rise - due to dense fog.

like everyone owns a car. I think that is why there aren't as many crashes in urban areas as there could be. I feel that in cities with high rises like New York it's especially dangerous. Tell me to go to hell but I don't think I am wrong.

However, having a little airplane to fly over the countryside is really exhilirating. I was a campground host up in northeastern Washington that had a small airstrip next to a lake adjacent to my campground. The small airplane (rich) people flew in there and camped on their campground out in the forest next to my campground. It was very nice. They were very nice people. If there were problems there were many places they could land without endangering anyone.

Come on.....any other statistics? Incidents? Anything?

It went into an office building.

They already have a law against intentionally flying a plane in to a building....the kid broke that law. Passing another law to stop a non-existent epidemic won't do anyone any good.

I can think of at this time of night is the Francis Gary Powers incident which he died in. Remember Francis Gary Powers, the U2 spy plane pilot shot down by the Russians and who was called a coward when returned to the USA? He ended up working as a news helicopter pilot in Los Angeles for a local news station. He died when his helicopter became flight unworthy.

He knew he was going to crash into a school or playground. I forget which but it involved children and in order to avoid crashing into them crashed into a place where he knew he would die. Now here we are talking about an experienced pilot who was able to make a decision, yet would he had been able to avoid a bigger tragedy if he had been less experienced?

Dense population makes it hard to have a "good" crash. Now in Los Angeles we have had crashes of large jets, but since the jets are usually able to make it to the ocean the crashes are less traumatic.

BTW, you are wrong re: commercial aircraft "making to the ocean."

You seem to be under some TV induced misconceptions that planes often crash after some long drawn out battle for control of the aircraft. Most of the time it's quick and ugly with little or no time for the pilot to react and/or figure out what the problem is. Most of the time it happens on landing or take-off with little time, altitude or room to maneuver let alone ditch at sea.

I would love to see some evidence or hear about incidents of a commercial aircraft ditching at sea to avoid ground casualties.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of several ground casualties caused by commercial aircraft:

Flight 191 Chicago '79 killed 2 0r 3 people in a mobile home park
Flight 587 New York 2001 killed several people on the ground - this was the one right after 9/11

The 727 mid-air in san diego killed people on the ground. I don't recall the flight number off hand. There is a famous picture of the 727 going down with its wing on fire. It was struck by a small craft in the airport traffic pattern.

Air Florida flight that crashed in to the Potomac killed people on a bridge sitting in their cars.

I have lived on the coast of California most of my life. I know that from LAX most flights go over the ocean first, just in case, before they rise in altitude to go to their various destinations. We have a history in the past of airplanes that didn't quite make it crashing in the ocean, which saved lives both on the ground and in the airplanes. Can't remember the specifics but I think they were Continental and Lufthansa. I could be wrong though.

Chicago is in the middle of the USA. However the Great Lakes could have been an option I don't know why San Diego was a problem but wasn't that after Reagan fired all the air controllers? I think there is a lot wrong with how our air traffic is handled these days. I think our pilots who are getting older are still trying to do outstanding jobs. But....this doesn't explain 9/11, does it?

99 times out a 100 the plane is going down where an when it wants to. A large commercial jet incident that is catastrophic enough to cause a crash is going to be catastrophic enough to cause the pilot to lose almost all control. It's called "uncontrolled flight" in to terrain.....that's usually how the final accident report reads no matter if it starts with mechanical problems or mid-air crash or pilot error.

There is almost no such thing as "oh no, I'm going to crash, I better take her out over the ocean to save lives."

The flight data recorders usually sound something like "oh shit, what was that, we're upside down! Pull up! max power! mom I love you....expletive deleted..."

Edit to add: I've never heard of large international airports basing their traffic patterns on chances of a crash. Noise levels Yes.......likelyhood of a crash No.

The airport back when it was built before WWII was built by the ocean with the plan that airplanes could crash there and avoid populated areas. I don't know beyond that. I worked at Continental for awhile after the new airport was built on the other side of Sepulveda. I know that even then the flight the patterns were planned that way for take offs. For arrivals, they came overland unless there was a traffic jam and they too had to head for the ocean and circle around there. The airport after then morphed into some bizarro weirdo thing after Reagan and his fight with the flight controllers. That's what I know.

That job is inherently dangerous for other reasons than some general aviation pilot flying over a city. You might as well group them in with industrial lift helicopters.

We lost one of my childhood heroes in Chicago to a similar accident...Flying Officer Jim CAVANAUGH killed 1979.

We lost three of these Chicago Policemen to helicopter accidents...

two others

Patrolman Leonard F. Baldy
Chicago Police Department
Illinois
End of Watch: Monday, May 2, 1960

Biographical Info
Age: 33
Tour of Duty: 8 years
Badge Number: 1451

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Aircraft accident
Date of Incident: Monday, May 2, 1960

Patrolman Irving Hayden
Chicago Police Department
Illinois
End of Watch: Sunday, October 10, 1971

Biographical Info
Age: Not available
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Aircraft accident
Date of Incident: Sunday, October 10, 1971
Weapon Used: Not available

You guys need to work on a solution.

occurrence (much unlike domestic accidents/violence involving guns) - so why would this one instance be cause to argue airspace restrictions?

small planes out there as there are privately owned cars, there would be far more accidents. The fact that planes don't have as many accidents as cars is that there are far fewer of them. The commerical airline industry promotes this piece of false information that it's safer to fly than drive because it wouldn't be good for business.

A Hughes 500 D and it took them three days to find us, but my passport was nowhere to be found :)

Fuel line broke and flooded the passenger compartment with flames, luckily our Nam pilot knew how to keep his cool and auto rotated us down onto the tundra in ANWR, another lucky break was that the permafrost was melting underneath the tundra, so when we hit it was like landing on a waterbed, or I probably wouldn't have any teeth today..

Or we would have done what the old Bush Pilots used to do in a hard landing, shit up our necks..

Actually, I'm writing a book about that right now :)

You still open for business DemoTex if I get it made into a movie? Fixed wing work, landing on gravel bars, scouting sites, probably running supplies.. or do you do choppers as well? All of our guys were Nam pilots and the BEST chopper pilots I've ever seen, spent 18 hours a day in choppers for two summers, prospecting for Uranium all over the face of Alaska

I do have some Hollywood interest in this work...

it.

When I heard they found Atta's passport I never believed one more word of what 'they' said.

This is amazing. And I'm going to say, for now, that it is an amazing lie.

Show us what else they found.

The only logical way it could get there is if of he threw it out? However, if they come up with belongings of the others, we're still going to have to hear several completely logical rationals of how it happened.

This claim deserves follow-up.

The thought came to me that someone was trying to prove the Atta passport find.

:eyes:

i was hoping you would chime in

And that's a polite understatement.

Question 1: Why would someone who was planning to make a flight that would never leave US airspace have his passport in the first place?

Question 2: Is it normal for flight training to be conducted over heavily populated areas?

I'm more interested in the second question than the first, because it seems to me that the likelihood of a plane falling out of the sky goes up somewhat if a pilot with a learner's permit is PIC, so the FAA would want as few people below that pilot as possible.