Results tagged “thenationaltransportationsafetyboard”

If you want to feel a little uncomfortable about how the Federal Aviation Administration is doing its job, read today's NY Times story about a near-miss at LaGuardia. Two weeks ago, a Comair Delta 50-seater and a Delta 737 were within a "few hundred feet" of colliding. A trainee had allowed the smaller plane to cross the runway, just as the 737 was descending to the very same one:

As the 737, Flight 1238, rolled down the runway at more than 150 miles per hour, an alarm flashed on a radar screen in the tower and someone realized a dire mistake had been made, according to details provided by officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the pilots’ and controllers’ unions. “No delay, no delay,” a controller shouted to the pilots of the regional jet, urging them to hurry across.

Continue reading "Planes Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close at Laguardia"

A helicopter on an aerial tour of New York City crashed into the Hudson River yesterday afternoon. Luckily none of the eight people - seven passenger and a pilot - were injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued its final report on the Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's Cirrus plane crash into an Upper East Side building. From the NTSB: "The probable cause of a small airplane crash in Manhattan last October was the pilots' inadequate planning, judgment, and airmanship in the performance of a 180-degree turn maneuver inside of a limited turning space." The NTSB found no problems with the plane itself, and suggested that the plane could have made the turn, if they had aggressively banked the plane during the turn or made an illegal turn over buildings.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery at 59-23 Main St. in Queens, a partial collapse of a house being renovated in Wingate, Brooklyn, and a pedestrian was struck at Clove Rd. and Victory Blvd. on Staten Island.
• The idiot fan arrested at a Mets game the other week plead guilty to attempting to blind Braves players with a high-powered flashlight. His sentence: 15 days in jail and a three two-year ban from home games at Shea and at the team's new Citi-Field for three one year.
• The National Transportation Safety Board released the final results of its investigation Corey Lidle's plane crash: The pilot misjudged a u-turn over the East River, crashing into a highrise buildings and it's still unclear who was flying at the time.
• Brownstoner.com is passing on a story about residents of a Brooklyn Heights co-op who had to vacate because of an older resident who seems have fire-starter tendencies.
• Some observers hinted that Tishman-Speyer may have overpaid when it bought the former New York Times building in 2004, but the real estate company is the one laughing all the way to the bank after unloading it at triple the price ($525 million) three years later.
• Love it or hate, you can schedule your prospective condo buying or protesting for the next nine years with this timeline map of the Atlantic Yards development.
• The Baltimore Police are not happy with a Brooklyn man who made more than 250 911 calls to them in a month-long period, once reporting that a Baltimore officer had been shot. He is also accused of making nearly 400 hoax calls to call centers in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
• The driver of a stolen SUV being pursued by police struck a private special-ed school's mini-bus, overturning it in Douglaston, Queens. Eight students, a driver, and an escort were injured in the crash, the escort seriously.

(prada soldiers 3, by smooch at flickr)

Radar data indicate that the airplane was flying over the east side of Roosevelt Island prior to initiating a 180 degree turn. At this location, there would have been a maximum of 2100 feet clearance from buildings, if the full width of the river had been used. However, from the airplane's mid-river position over Roosevelt Island, the available turning width was only 1700 feet. The prevailing wind from the east would have caused the airplane to drift 400 feet toward the building during the turn, reducing the available turning width to about 1300 feet. At an airspeed of 97 knots, this turn would have required a constant bank angle of 53 degrees and a loading of 1.7 Gs on the airplane. If the initial portion of the turn was not this aggressive, a sufficiently greater bank angle would have been needed as the turn progressed, which would have placed the airplane dangerously close to an aerodynamic stall.

The NTSB hasn't officially determined that the plane stalled, but suspects that was what happened. The NTSB stressed, "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."