Bob Chilcoat wrote:
Has anyone heard anyone mention the name of the flight instructor? I guess
he/she's a real guy/gal, but from the media, you would never know that there
was a real human in the right seat. Sad.


They announced his name on CNN this morning. If I found the right Tyler Stanger
(there was only one listed in the entire US pilot database), he's from Walnut,
CA (LA County) and is a CFII with a mechanic's rating. He sounds like the
perfect guy to help a newby fly back across the US. I assume more will come out
in the next day or so about what kind of guy he was.

If he is from LA, then I suppose that might suggest an unfamiliarity with NY
airspace, particularly around the East River. But it's all conjecture at this
point.... I'm just talking out of my ass. At this point I am nowhere near
willing to offer an opinion as to what caused the accident. Besides, it usually
isn't any one thing.

As an aside, I saw a women being interviewed who said she saw smoke *above* the
plane right before the collision. Do you suppose they tried to deploy the chute
and the smoke she saw was the rocket firing?



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com