To the pilots who fly the area regularly-

That turn looks to me like it needs to be handled as a base-final
turn... get flaps out 10 (maybe even 25) and stabalized at ~60 knots
(my pa28-140 speeds), and make a nice crisp pattern turn (I know, most
pattern turns are 90 then 90, but you get my drift).

Is this a safe assessment?

An A.net guy calculated his speed based on the returns, he was doing
almost 120 knots up the east river until immediately before the turn,
then he abruptly slowed to 90... we were wondering if he would have had
time to get the plane stabalized before initiating the turn.

At that point, all he needed was a bit of poor pilotage (something I
myself must admit too on occasion)- he initiates a tight turn too
quickly, does not hold enough back preassure on the yoke, finds himself
suddenly in a skyscraper forest, panics- firewall the throttle and turn
hard to avoid a looming monolith in front of him... stall... and
physics does the rest.

Blasto wrote:
Confusing reports on the Lidle crash-- Mayor Bloomberg, sounding
utterly confident in his sources, says the plane took off from
Teterboro, circled the Statue of Liberty, flew up (south-to-north) the
East River, then into the building. A few minutes earlier, a CNN
reporter using PASSUR asserted that after taking off the plane tracked
straight west-to-east over Central Park, turned right and followed the
East River (north-to-south) and suddenly banked right into the
building. Given that the impact was on the building's north face, the
latter account seems more likely.

Anyone have newer info?

--
B