His well-trimmed eyebrows arched and the tattoos on his neck went taut as he spoke. “I was scared,” he said. As one of the few witnesses willing to talk to the media, the buzz of a possible terrorist attack still humming at the scene, reporters questioned Luis Gonzalez in the rain outside of the yellow police tape at the corner of York Avenue and 73rd Street. Eager reporters surrounded Gonzalez, some jutting cameras, microphones and tape recorders in his face and others scribbling furiously in notepads. Everyone wanted to know exactly what happened, a question Gonzalez would have liked answered as well.
The first time New Yorkers watched news broadcasts about planes flying into their buildings, mouths gaped; no words could appropriately describe how it felt to see terrorists crack the skyline. No one expected to see it happen the first time, but the second announcement of a plane colliding with a New York City high-rise—five years and one month after 9/11—elicited a different sort of response: “Again? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
On Oct. 11, a small plane crashed into the 50-floor Belaire Condominiums apartment building at 524 E. 72nd St. on the Upper East Side. Video shots of the scene showed a smoking, flaming hole in the side of the red-brick building and helicopters circling the building’s top. Newscasters brought up-to-the-minute “This just in” briefs, one the most important of which reported that the crash was not linked to terrorism.
The news that the crash was simply an accident might have comforted the rest of the United States, but it did little to ease the tension on Gonzalez’s face. Gonzalez, 23, was working construction on the 46th floor of the building when the plane hit a few floors below. After the hungry media crush surrounding the accident site dissipated, Gonzalez stepped aside, staring at the ground and hiding beneath his baseball cap. He said that he and his fellow construction workers saw the plane approaching from the north. “I saw a little airplane coming towards us,” he said. “I just couldn’t move.” The plane veered out of Gonzalez’s sight, but moments later, he heard the loud noise of the plane striking the building a few floors below. He and the other workers ran to the elevator, stopping at some of the floors to check for stranded residents. When the elevator reached the floors closer to the crash site, Gonzalez said he saw fire and smoke. The elevator eventually reached the smoke-filled lobby, and Gonzalez and the workers safely exited.
The shock of another plane collision in Manhattan fell to the background of the public and media’s perspectives when the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed rumors that the plane was registered in the name of Yankees pitcher, Cory Lidle. Lidle, 34, and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, 26, were in the plane when it crashed, and both were killed in the accident. It may never be determined who piloted the plane at the time of the collision.
In the days that followed the crash, the spotlight rested on Lidle and his family. His brothe (and fraternal twin) Kevin appeared on “Larry King Live” the day of the accident. Kevin said the last time he spoke with his brother, they talked about Kevin’s adult league baseball team making it to the World Series in Phoenix. Lidle had been trying to make plans to attend the series while he was in his hometown of California after the Yankees’ defeat in the playoffs.
“He had a tremendous sense of humor,” Kevin said of his brother. “He loved to laugh, and he was good at making other people laugh.” Kevin, like those who witnessed the plane crash firsthand, said he was still in a “state of shock” and had yet to fully realize the reality of the situation.
In the midst of the broadcast, a clip of Lidle ran that made it clear just how much the baseball player loved flying. “It’s a good feeling,” he said. “No matter what’s going on, on the ground in your life, you can go up in the air and everything is gone. You know, you don’t think about baseball. You don’t think about anything. It’s just something that takes you away from everyday life.”
Lidle’s history as an experienced flyer and his membership with New York City’s team supreme made all signs point to acciden, not terrorism. But if a small plane could still collide with a city high-rise, even accidentally, it seemed that New York City still remained at risk for airborne, intentional attacks. In response to the crash, the FAA immediately issued a temporary flight restriction on general aviation aircraft that required all planes in the New York City area, flying under 1,500 feet above ground, to be under the authorization of air traffic control. New York State Governor George Pataki commended the FAA’s restriction, but he requested that the restriction remain in effect until the state and Homeland Security officials devised a better plan for keeping New York City’s airspace safe. “[It] should enjoy the same kind of protection as our Nation’s Capital,” Pataki said.
All flights within the vicinity of Washington, D.C., must receive authorization from the FAA, and with New York City’s plane-meets-building history, the decision seems glaringly appropriate. “Today’s event is yet another reminder of our need to stay vigilant in our efforts to keep New Yorkers safe from terrorist attacks,” Pataki said.
New York City’s airway, especially over the East Rive, have a history of being difficult to navigate, and the foggy skies on the day of Lidle’s crash made the route even more complicated. The suspected flight path Lidle and Stanger traveled along the East River did not require any permission grants from air traffic controllers as long as the route did not go too far north above Manhattan.
Officials said Lidle’s plane took off from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport. Shortly thereafter, at around 2:42 p.m., Lidle’s plane appeared in the line of vision of Marla Kaufman, who was in the hospital across the street on the fifth floor with her mother. Kaufma, an animated speaker who could not help but smile in disbelief, stood on the corner of 73rd Street and York Avenue, offering to show reporters exclusive pictures of the crash that she took on her cell phone. Kaufman said that when she saw the plane, she immediately thought she was witnessing a terrorist attack. “[The hospital staff] told us to sit tight,” Kaufman said.
Rob Miranda, one of Gonzalez’s fellow workers on the apartment building’s 46th floor, could not just “sit tight.” Miranda casually recounted the incident with mock cool, even going so far as to lightheartedly poke fun at his more panicked co-workers. Miranda said he saw the plane come toward him and then hook into the building a few floors below. He said he didn’t feel the building shake when the plane hit, but the noise was enough to get him running to the elevator. “It sounded like a really bad car crash,” Miranda said.
No one inside of the building at 524 E. 72nd St. died in the collision, and the fire department was able to quickly extinguish the blaze. But aside from the FAA’s temporary restriction, not much has changed thus far that would prevent another plane crash, accidental or no, from happening yet again.
In the wake of the incident, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “No terrorist is going to use a small plane. A big plane obviously, but a small plane, no.” Perhaps Bloomberg is right: A tiny plane could not cause the destruction of 9/11, and the Upper East Side apartment is, in fact, still standing. But to the construction workers like Miranda and Gonzalez, the size of the plane did not matter. That one-engine, four-seater was big enough to cause plenty of damage in other ways.
“The fact of the matter is,” said Bloomberg, “that a small plane really can’t do all that much damage.” Perhaps not physically, but psychologically, the damage has most certainly been done.
