Corey Lidle Flight graphics A pretty neat view of his flight path.

One can only scratch their heads at this one.

Why oh why ...

It's really very simple, tragic but simple. Mister instructor was so enthralled with flying with hero ball player instead of flying with someone that could kill him. He wasn't doing his job. Brings to mind Thurman Munsen(sp) another ball player.

Ah, I was wondering when we would hear from the all-knowing. It appears it happened 29 November at 12:45.

stdon, care to elaborate on your aircraft investigation skills and first-hand knowledge of the accident?

Wendell, thanks for the post. Cool display of where they went.

Doug

It is very simple. Is it normal procedure to run into buildings? If it was a mechanical problem they still had better options than to try to land in a building. So the question is, who was flying the plane, and who should have been keeping an eye on things? More importantly, who was responsible for keeping an eye on things? And because of this inattention someone else had to pay a very high price for this skylarking.

Didn't want to seem smart assed about things but after flying for 40 years, 30 as my sole means of support, you see these things happen quite frequently. Someone wasn't minding the store.

Don

I think we owe the pilots the benefit of the doubt. Remimds me of USAir 427- everyone seemed to want to blame the flightcrew until it was discovered it was a hard over from from the rudder servo.

Lidle had, as I recall, about 150 hours, no idea how many the instructor had. Either one would be completely competent to not fly into a building. What happened on that flight is a mystery until the NTSB gets the investigation done. And maybe always will be.

A star-struck CFI MIGHT bust airspace, miss a radio call, encroach on a runway. It would not be enough to cause that accident. Especially in a Cirrus. I have only flown a Cirrus once on a short demo flight, but it is an incredibly forgiving plane with lots of power in the 22 version. And if the CFI went through Cirrus' program he was better trained on that plane than most 135 pilots get on the plane they will fly.

Something like 75% of accidents come down to pilot error, but I very much doubt it will be something as simple as the CFI being negligent.

Doug

Wasn't the weather a bit o/c?
In my experence, a turn in or away from cloud can get one into a bit more. And some clouds are full of buildings.
The exact same thing happened to a friend of mine, only he collected a radio mast.

We'll have to wait for the NTSB report on this one. Loss of situational awareness seems to have been a factor, but I wasn't there, so I won't criticize anyone, particularly two guys who can't defend themselves.