Monday, October 10, 2016

Cessna F150M Commuter, G-BDZC: Fatal accident occurred October 17, 2016 in Cambridge, United Kingdom







NTSB Identification: CEN17WA017
Accident occurred Monday, October 17, 2016 in Cambridge, United Kingdom
Aircraft: CESSNA F150, registration:
Injuries: 1 Fatal, 1 Minor.

The foreign authority was the source of this information.

On October 17, 2016, at 1021 coordinated universal time, a Reims Cessna F150M airplane, G-BDZC, crashed after takeoff at the Bourn Airfield (EGSN), Cambridge, United Kingdom. The pilot was fatally injured.

The accident investigation is under the jurisdiction and control of the government of the United Kingdom. This report is for information purposes only and contains only information released by or obtained from the United Kingdom. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:

Farnborough House
Berkshire Copse Road
Aldershot, Hampshire
GU11 2HH, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1252 510300
Fax: +44 (0)1252 376999
https://www.aaib.gov.uk

Norwegian Air Shuttle to hire at least 24 U.S. pilots for its Fort Lauderdale crew base

To shore up growth in the United States in coming years, Norwegian Air Shuttle announced Monday it is recruiting and hiring American pilots for its crew base at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

The Scandinavian low-cost airline, which has drawn opposition from U.S. carriers and unions over its business practices, said its goal is to hire a "large pool" of American pilots to ensure adequate staffing for the dozens of new Boeing Dreamliner aircraft expected to join its fleet over the next few years.

"Hiring American pilots for our long-haul operation has been one of Norwegian's goals since launching our transatlantic service three years ago, and we are thrilled that we are finally able to do so," said Asgeir Nyseth, Norwegian Group chief operating officer, in a statement. "With the delivery of 31 additional Boeing Dreamliners over the next few years, Norwegian is excited to be adding American pilots to our ever-growing workforce."

Norwegian will be the only European airline to hire U.S.-based pilots, Nyseth said.

For its Fort Lauderdale pilots' base, the carrier is aiming to hire a minimum of 24 crew members to support operations of one Dreamliner aircraft, spokesman Anders Lindstrom said. That will include one base captain, nine captains, five relief captains and nine first officers, he said.

"We will start with a pilot's base in Fort Lauderdale, but the ambition, of course, is to grow and also have more pilot bases in the U.S.," Lindstrom said. "Recruitment is already in place, with job ads just out, and we aim to have them working during the first six months of 2017."

The airline has received nearly 100 applications for the pilots' jobs, which will offer competitive salaries, Lindstrom added.

Norwegian first began recruiting American flight attendants for its bases at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood and John F. Kennedy International Airport in October 2013. Three years later, it expects to have more than 500 American cabin crew members across the two bases by year's end, Norwegian said.

In August, Norwegian's U.S. base flight attendants voted for union representation through the Norwegian Cabin Crew Association, with assistance from the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA in Washington, D.C., which represents nearly 60,000 flight attendants at several major carriers.

Norwegian launched service between Fort Lauderdale and Scandinavia in late 2013, with flights to Oslo, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Stockholm, Sweden. It then added service to London's Gatwick Airport in July 2014 and, most recently, to Paris, France this August.

Since it began operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood in November 2013, Norwegian has carried 511,894 passengers on 1,977 flights to and from there, airport records show.

Next up, Norwegian plans to launch service from Fort Lauderdale to Guadeloupe in the French Caribbean on Dec. 17 and to Barcelona, Spain on Aug. 22.

Given the upcoming launch of several new routes from the United States, the hiring of American pilots over the next few years will allow it to adequately accommodate the growth of its long-haul network, airline officials have said.

Norwegian said it will cover the cost of converting the U.S. pilots' certification from a Federal Aviation Administration pilot certificate to a European pilot license based on European Aviation Safety Agency regulations.

"Continuing our U.S. expansion is one of the key factors to Norwegian's global strategy, and we want to be able to support the local market and stimulate those economies as much as we possibly can," Nyseth said. "We are still looking at opening more crew bases across the U.S., and depending on the success of the American pilots in Fort Lauderdale, we'll include pilots in each of those new bases as well."

Currently, two subsidiaries — Norwegian Air International (Ireland) and Norwegian UK (London) — are awaiting approval from the Department of Transportation for their foreign air carrier permit to operate flights between the United States and Europe.

Their approval would allow the airline to more effectively utilize its long-haul fleet and establish a seamless operation, including the use of the same aircraft on both U.S. and other long-haul routes to Asia and South America, Norwegian said.

Norwegian Air International's application, which has been pending for more than two years, has received opposition from industry groups including the AFA and Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA).

AFA has said NAI's business model evades international labor laws and seeks to create unfair competition with U.S. carriers. ALPA, which represents more than 52,000 pilots at 30 airlines in North America, contends the airline's business plan threatens fair competition and U.S. jobs.

Both applications are still pending approval from the DOT.

For information on Norwegian's pilot jobs, click here.

Source:   http://www.sun-sentinel.com

Cirrus SR20, Cory Lidle, N929CD: 10 Years After Plane Crash, Lidle’s Widow Says ‘It’s Still Not Realistic’

Cory Lidle, a New York Yankees pitcher, flies over Clearwater, Florida, in February 2006. (credit: Randy Miller/Bucks County Courier Times) 


Cory Lidle, Tyler Stanger and their families pose for a photo on the Rockefeller Center observation deck on Oct. 10, 2006, a day before Lidle and Stanger were killed in a plane crash in Manhattan. (Photo courtesy of Melanie Lidle-Heyward)



There are still days Melanie doesn’t believe it really happened. But then she looks at her son. Christopher isn’t 6 years old anymore. He’s a teenager, doing teenage things like learning to drive. So it must be real.

Melanie’s husband and Christopher’s father — Cory Lidle — died in a plane crash on Oct. 11, 2006. Lidle pitched in the major leagues for a decade, including the last two months of his career with the Yankees.

When I met with Melanie and Christopher in New York City last month, it was easy to see Christopher’s resemblance to Cory. “His eyes have always been (Cory’s) from day one,” Melanie said with a smile.

Lidle’s death — 10 years ago Tuesday — was stunning, certainly for the manner in which it happened. His small plane crashed into a building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, killing him at age 34, and his 26-year-old copilot/flight instructor, Tyler Stanger. Just five years after 9/11, news of a plane crash in Manhattan sent chills down New Yorkers’ spines.

There were a few things that struck me about Cory’s death. For one, I knew Cory, albeit for just two months.

For another, I spoke to him a few times about his relatively new hobby of flying airplanes, and we openly talked about famous plane crashes just three days before his tragic accident.

And what hit me maybe hardest of all was that I — along with the rest of the world — knew Cory died before Melanie and Christopher did.

“Cory went up in the plane and was in love,” Melanie said of the first time he had flown in a small aircraft. That was the fall of 2005, during an offseason vacation with friends in Arizona.

A month before the 10th anniversary of Cory’s death, Melanie Lidle-Heyward sat across from me — along with now-16-year-old Christopher and her second husband, Brandyn Heyward — in the restaurant of a Midtown hotel. We were about three miles from the Belaire Apartments, where Cory’s plane crashed barely a year after that first flight.

Obsessed With Hobbies

Melanie and Cory had known each other since they were kids in West Covina, California, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. They dated in eighth grade, were best friends throughout their years at South Hills High School and got together again after graduating in 1990. They were married in 1997, the year Cory made his major league debut with the Mets.

By 2005, Cory had become one of the more durable pitchers in the majors, starting at least 30 games for the fourth straight season. He was also one of the most traveled, pitching for five teams in six years.

The time and devotion to compete in the major leagues is enough to consume some people. For Cory, there was always time for family and other diversions.

“Cory is one of those guys that has to always be doing something,” Melanie said. “And he has to be the best at it, and then he will move on.”

Once Cory felt the itch to fly planes, Melanie knew exactly what that meant because Cory’s hobbies would be all-consuming. In high school, he wanted to become a pool shark and flipped burgers in the kitchen of a local billiards hall just so he could play for free. Later, after taking up golf, he would be out on the course several times a day to perfect his swing.

“The joke in our house was that he was only allowed to have one hobby at a time, because I would never see him,” Melanie laughed. “We started poker so I could spend more time with him.”

Poker became such a serious endeavor that they befriended World Series of Poker champion Chris Moneymaker. Cory actually advanced to the fourth round of a WSOP qualifier in 2004, and Melanie made it to the second round.

Cory had a small window of time to obsess over his newest hobby — between October and February, which is the end of the regular season and the start of spring training. A minimum of 40 hours of solo flight time is required before earning a private pilot’s license, and that takes most people a year or longer.

Cory met and hired Stanger as his instructor in the fall of 2005. By September of 2006, Cory said in a New York Times article that he had amassed 95 solo hours.

Cory had also just purchased his own plane, a 2002 Cirrus SR-20, for $187,000, according to the Times article.

“Of course I was worried, but there was nothing I could do,” Melanie told me. She remembers going up in a plane twice with Cory in spring training. That was in planes they rented to fly, but she never went up in the Cirrus plane with him.

“I know Cory — I knew that he isn’t going to do something half-assed,” she said. “I knew that he went up there and knew what he was doing. But I knew the risks. He’s told me a million times, ‘I’m more likely to have a crash on the street than in the air.’”

Over the course of about 90 minutes, Melanie spoke about Cory in the present tense off and on — a reminder that, for some, 10 years can go by in an instant. And maybe another sign that she’s not sure it really happened.

Melanie knew that trying to keep her husband grounded would have been fruitless.

“I couldn’t tell Cory, ‘No you’re not going to get a plane,’” she said. “He’s a grown man. (I asked) ‘Why the plane?’ But I knew that he loved it and there was no talking him out of it.”

Last Moments With His Family 

Cory was traded from the Phillies to the Yankees at the end of July in 2006. He appeared in 10 games for the Yankees over the final two months of the season, going 4-3 with a 5.16 ERA. He made one appearance in the Yankees’ four-game loss to the Tigers in the ALDS — the final game in Detroit.

While Cory flew back to New York with the team on a Saturday night, Melanie and Christopher flew back from California — where Christopher had just started kindergarten — to meet him. Before they packed up and went home for the winter, they were going to spend a few days enjoying New York City.

When it was time to fly back to California, Melanie and Christopher planned to board a commercial flight while Cory would fly home in his Cirrus, a journey that would take three days with stops in between. Since Cory was going to be joined on his flight by his instructor, Stanger and his family also traveled to New York.

The Lidles and Stangers spent Monday and Tuesday walking around Manhattan and taking in what the city had to offer. They took their kids to see “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway. And Tuesday, on their last full day in New York, they took pictures from the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center.

“That’s the last picture we have of all of us together,” Melanie said.

Well Aware Of What Could Go Wrong

I was among the group of reporters Cory spoke to as he cleaned out his locker the day after the Yankees had been eliminated from the playoffs. As the session broke up and we said goodbye for the winter, Cory told us about his plan to fly home in a few days on his new plane.

I joked with Cory that I started to sing “American Pie” every time I boarded a small commuter jet. No way would I ever go up in a plane like that, I told him.

We started talking about the safety issues, and he told me and a few other reporters that he was a student of flying now. He was well aware of the accidents that had claimed the lives of Thurman Munson and John F. Kennedy Jr.

Cory told us he had read the accident reports on both of those famous crashes and others on the National Transportation Safety Board website.

Munson, the former Yankees captain, died Aug. 2, 1979, in a small plane crash in Ohio. At old Yankee Stadium, the team kept his locker stall empty with his No. 15 hanging above. It was across the clubhouse about 40 feet away from where Cory was standing and telling us — just like he told Melanie so many times — he was more likely to get into an accident on the ground than in the air.

Cory was going to be a free agent, and it was unlikely he would have re-signed with the Yankees, so he made sure his family got to spend a couple days having fun in New York before they had to leave.

That Fateful Day

Then, on a gray Wednesday afternoon, Cory and Stanger took off from Teterboro Airport around 2:30 p.m. They flew past the Statue of Liberty and up the East River, a little aerial sight-seeing before turning west for home.

Less than 15 minutes after takeoff, the plane slammed into a 42-story apartment building on East 72nd Street.

News outlets quickly covered the story, with fears of a terrorist attack being an immediate reaction by most. That idea was soon dismissed, and in a short period of time, reporters learned that it was Cory’s plane that struck the building and that both men had perished in the fiery crash.

Media outlets began reporting the deaths Lidle and Stanger. But New York City and police officials were not officially making that announcement yet.

That’s because both men had wives and children who were on a plane heading to California. And they had no idea yet what had happened.

“I had like 15 people helping me at one time, and I thought, this is kind of weird, no one’s ever done this before,'” Melanie said.

Melanie had gotten used to flying alone with Christopher all over the country. A baseball wife married to an oft-traveled player figures out the routine pretty quickly.

“Him and I fly everywhere together, and I did everything by myself,” Melanie recalled. “No one would ever offer to help.”

Not that it’s easy, but Melanie had gotten used to taking care of Christopher and all the belongings — bags, car seat, stroller, etc. — by herself with little assistance.

This time it was different. The crew on the cross-country flight from New York to Los Angeles was being extra attentive to Melanie and Christopher.

“This time the flight attendants were coming up to us (during the flight) and asking him questions — ‘How old are you? Oh, you’re so cute.’”

Maybe if they were in first class, she wouldn’t have been as suspicious. But since she was travelling with Stephanie Stanger and her 9-month-old daughter, they were all seated in coach. The two families were separated by a few rows.

“And people are coming up to me,” Melanie said, “wanting to help me with the car seat, help me with my bag, and I’m thinking to myself this is the weirdest thing ever.”

One thing to remember is that in 2006, there were no iPhones. There was no Twitter, no Facebook and no on-board Wi-Fi to keep passengers constantly plugged in and up to date. On board a commercial airplane, you were still out of touch with the rest of the world until the plane landed. Unless you were a pilot.

It turns out that an old high school friend of Cory and Melanie heard news of the plane crash on TV while Melanie’s plane was still in the air. That friend had a family member who worked at American Airlines, allowing him to get a message to the pilots and crew and alerting them to what just happened to the husbands of two of their passengers.

Back in L.A., where the news spread in normal time, family members of both the Lidles and the Stangers were brought to the terminal so they could meet the plane at the gate. Melanie remembers hearing an announcement for passengers to not turn their phones on until after they got off the plane.

“I thought that’s weird, too,” Melanie said.

She realized later that “they didn’t want people to turn their phones on and see the breaking news.”

Waiting at the gate when Melanie and Christopher got off the plane were Melanie’s sister, Brandy Peters, and her husband, Miles.

“You couldn’t get past security without a ticket, so I thought, ‘What the hell are you guys doing here?'” Melanie said.

“My sister looked at me and said, ‘Melanie, Cory’s been in an accident.’

Melanie began to wonder about the magnitude of Cory’s plane crashing in New York City.

“I thought, ‘How many people could have died in this?’” Melanie said. “And she’s like, ‘It’s just Cory and Tyler.’

“And I was kind of trying to process that. ‘How can that happen? You hit a building in New York City, just the debris on the ground, how does that not hit anybody else?’”

There were, in fact, several injuries at the site and on the ground, but miraculously none life-threatening.

“So I think all these things are just going through my head, and at that point, I must have just, not blacked out, but just — shock hit me,” Melanie said. “My legs went from under me. They put me in a wheelchair, and they took me into a little room.”

Christopher was whisked away by a family friend, taken to Melanie’s truck, which had been brought out to the tarmac near the plane, and distracted with headphones and cartoons.

“As they are rolling me in, I’m thinking to myself: ‘Stephanie is on the plane. She’s four months pregnant, and she’s got a 9-month-old baby with her,'” Melanie said. “And they said: “Her family is here, too. They’re going to get her.”

Stephanie Stanger, just like Melanie, was then told her husband was dead.

“All of a sudden, I hear screaming,” Melanie recalled. “They had to take her out with the wheelchair. She was throwing up. And I was so worried about this baby.”

Stephanie’s baby would be OK. He just wouldn’t ever meet his father.

Melanie and Christopher went home, but had to sneak into their house in the middle of the night. That’s because the media had already gathered outside the Lidle house in West Covina. Remember, they knew what happened before she did, and they had blocked the entire street.

“There were reporters and newscasters and lights and everything,” Melanie recalled. “So we went to my sister’s house, and then in the middle of the night, we went back, and we were able to drive our truck into the garage.”

The crush of media on the tiny cul de sac caused a power outage on the street.

“We couldn’t leave the house. It was bombarded,” Melanie said.

Meanwhile, there was Christopher, shielded from the sobering reality as much as possible.

“Luckily Nickelodeon doesn’t show breaking news,” Melanie said.

Melanie was having a hard enough time coming to grips with Cory’s death. Trying to break the news to Christopher became impossible.

“I couldn’t do it,” Melanie said. “My mom and my sister, they told him for me. I didn’t want to know how he reacted. … I didn’t want to know.”

Telling a 6-year old his father is dead is one thing. Getting him to understand it is something else altogether.

“They told him, but I don’t think he believed it or really knew what they were talking about,” Melanie said. “I don’t think he really accepted it.

“He didn’t cry. And, truthfully, I didn’t cry for the first week. I think I was in so much shock I couldn’t have any feelings. Christopher and I are a lot alike in that sense, so I think he probably handled it the way I did. It didn’t really happen in our minds.”

The first time Melanie left her house after that was for Cory’s funeral, six days after the accident. Christopher was there, but was taken home halfway through by his older cousins.

Derek Jeter, Joe Torre, Brian Cashman and Reggie Jackson were among those representing the Yankees.

Kevin Lidle, Cory’s twin brother and a former minor league player, was — unintentionally — a spooky presence.

There was media coverage there as well. The USA Today account mentioned that, “Supported by another woman, Lidle’s wife, Melanie, walked up to the gray casket … .”

The other woman was Stephanie Stanger.

“For me, after getting past Cory actually being gone, the second hardest thing was that it was all about Cory,” Melanie said.

“That really hurt me. It was really hard to look at them in the face, knowing that (Tyler’s) life wasn’t as important (to the media) as Cory’s.”

The other thing Melanie kept coming back to was Christopher.

“If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know how different it would have been,” she said. “But I had to be strong for him.”

Picking Up The Pieces

The Yankees provided a great deal of assistance right away, from helping Melanie’s sister arrange the funeral to setting up grief counseling for both Melanie and Christopher.

“He was still so little, so he didn’t understand,” Melanie said. “He thought he was going there for playtime.”

In the first few months after losing his father, Christopher would oftentimes wake up crying in the middle of the night.

“It wasn’t that he was thinking about Cory,” Melanie said. “He was thinking about everybody else.”

Christopher would wake up thinking about his mom, his grandmother or his aunt and uncle not being there now. Melanie left a cellphone next to his bed with a handful of numbers programmed, and Christopher would awake in the middle of the night and call his grandmother, just to make sure she was still there.

Therapy only helped so much. Melanie took Christopher once a week, and then went by herself another day of the week. They went for about two years before Melanie decided to “give us a break.”

In 2008, 8-year-old Christopher was playing baseball in the same West Covina little league his dad had decades earlier. That’s when Melanie met Brandyn Heyward.

It turned out that Brandyn had lived in the same neighborhood as Melanie when they were kids, but they didn’t know each other then. Brandyn also had played college baseball against Cory’s twin brother, Kevin.

Doug Lidle — Cory’s dad and Christopher’s grandfather — introduced Brandyn and Melanie. There was also a little help from Brandyn’s teenage son, R.J., who was strategically deployed by Brandyn to strike up conversation with Melanie.

Brandyn was divorced. As he and Melanie became close, so did R.J. and Christopher. Melanie saw Christopher looking up to R.J. like an older brother.

On March 22, 2009, R.J died in a drowning accident caused by a heart issue. He was 14 years old. And it happened on what would have been Cory’s 37th birthday.

With another traumatic event to deal with in such a short time, Melanie decided to get Christopher back into therapy.

“It kind of pushed everything backwards for a little bit,” Melanie said. However, “It didn’t take so long to get everything back to normal this time.”

In April 2010, Melanie and Brandyn were married. After living for a short time in Glendora, they moved to West Covina, down the street from the home Melanie and Cory were planning to build in 2006.

The Aftermath

The final NTSB accident report on Cory’s crash was released in May 2007. It states the cause of the fatal accident was “the pilots’ inadequate planning, judgment, and airmanship in the performance of a 180-degree turn maneuver inside of a limited turning space.”

The report placed blame solely on the pilots, but the board could not definitively determine which of the two men was at the controls when the crash occurred.

When the investigation was complete, personal effects recovered from the wreckage were returned to the families. Melanie received Cory’s wallet and his laptop.

“Everything smelled burnt,” Melanie recalled.

Stephanie received Tyler’s wedding ring and his digital camera.

Amazingly, the memory card inside the camera was still intact and held five pictures—three shots of the Statue of Liberty, taken as Cory and Tyler flew past it minutes before the crash, and the two family pictures taken at the Top of the Rock the day before the accident.

Stephanie printed the family pictures and presented them as a gift to Melanie.

“It was crazy to see those pictures,” Melanie said. “I don’t think I remembered them until I saw them.”

Together Melanie and Stephanie sued Cirrus Design in 2011 for product liability. After testimony that lasted two months, the jury deliberated only three hours and returned a verdict in favor of the plane’s manufacturer.

“It took a two-month toll on my life,” Melanie said.

But the trial process educated Melanie.

“If I knew then what I know now about planes,” she told me, “I don’t think there would have been a plane.

“It hasn’t been easy the last 10 years,” Melanie said.

That is an unimaginable understatement.

Before Cory died, Melanie dealt with thyroid cancer. In 2013, she battled breast cancer.

“They caught it early,” Melanie said. “I’m a clean bill of health right now. We’ve had a lot go on. But we have a really great family support, and it just makes it a little bit easier to get through things.”

Keeping His Memory Alive

Melanie and Stephanie still keep in touch. It was more frequent before, but now it’s usually once a year for the Cory Lidle Thanksgiving Tournament, a youth baseball event in West Covina. Proceeds go to scholarship funds in the names of Cory Lidle and Tyler Stanger, as well as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and City of Hope charities.

Stephanie attends every year with her and Tyler’s two children — their daughter, Ashlund, and their son, Powell, the baby that Stephanie was carrying and Melanie so worried about when they learned of the plane crash.

“Looks just like his father,” Melanie said smiling.

Melanie, Brandyn and Christopher were at Yankee Stadium in September for a game between the Yankees and Dodgers. Christopher no longer plays baseball. He’s focused now on soccer and volleyball. But they still enjoy going to the ballpark.

“Major League Baseball has been a big part of our lives,” Melanie said. “They’ve taken really good care of us.”

Melanie said they feel closest to the Yankees — Cory’s last team — and the Phillies and A’s, the two teams with which he spent the most time.

The Yankees invited Melanie and Christopher to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day 2007 in New York. Jason Giambi joined them on the field. Giambi, also from West Covina, was a teammate of Cory’s in both high school and the majors.
Inside the Yankees’ clubhouse, Cory’s locker was left empty for the season, his No. 30 plate hanging above it. Melanie never went inside to see it.

Christopher sat next to his mom for more than an hour while we discussed the events of 10 years ago. He was quiet, but listened intently. He told me he doesn’t remember much about his father’s playing days.

But the Lidles are fortunate to have plenty of video from Cory’s library. Christopher used to watch them more when he was younger, less so now. But only because he’s a busy teenager, Melanie said, than any other reason.

Their favorite is a highlight video Cory’s agent put together for teams in preparation for his free agency. In addition to strikeouts and other game action, there are some personal moments. One of them has Cory talking about one of his hobbies, poker. Then-3-year-old Christopher is sitting on his dad’s lap talking and playing.

“That’s a really hard video for me to look at without crying,” Melanie says.

‘I Always Feel People Feel Sorry For Us’ 

Melanie told me she doesn’t do public speaking very well, and she hasn’t told her story very much, either. During our conversations, both on the phone and in person, Melanie held it together better than I did.

I fought the urge to cry many times.

“I always feel people feel sorry for us,” Melanie told me. “I don’t want that.”

I was probably guilty of that for sure. Cory’s death stuck with me, and Melanie and Christopher are people I just had to meet. I did it so I could tell a little of their story. But I also did it so I could just know they were OK.

And for the most part they are. But there are still those times when Melanie doesn’t believe it actually happened.

“Even to this day, sometimes I think: Is this a dream? Am I going to wake up?

“I’ve known Cory more than half my life. For him not to be a part of me every day, it’s still not realistic. It’s still not reality for me.”

Cory is buried not far from their home in West Covina. “That’s the view he would have wanted,” Melanie said to me.

They will pay another visit Tuesday. Ten years now.

“To me, Cory’s always with us,” Melanie said. “I don’t think he’d want us to mourn and be upset — actually I know that for a fact. I know he wouldn’t want that. Cory’s put us in a comfortable lifestyle. We get to do a lot that we like to do and have fun, and I know that’s exactly how he’d want us to be. That’s how Cory lived.”

Story and photo gallery:   http://newyork.cbslocal.com
 
NTSB Identification: DCA07MA003
The docket is stored in the Docket Management System (DMS). Please contact Records Management Division
Accident occurred Wednesday, October 11, 2006 in Manhattan, NYC, NY
Probable Cause Approval Date: 06/27/2007
Aircraft: Cirrus Design Corp. SR-20, registration: N929CD
Injuries: 2 Fatal, 1 Serious, 2 Minor.

NTSB investigators traveled in support of this investigation and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.

The Safety Board's full brief is available at http://dms.ntsb.gov


On October 11, 2006, about 1442 eastern daylight time, a Cirrus Design SR20, N929CD, operated as a personal flight, crashed into an apartment building in Manhattan, New York City, while attempting to maneuver above the East River. The two pilots on board the airplane, a certificated private pilot who was the owner of the airplane and a passenger who was a certificated commercial pilot with a flight instructor certificate, were killed. One person on the ground sustained serious injuries, two people on the ground sustained minor injuries, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The flight was operating under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 91, and no flight plan was filed. Marginal visual flight rules (MVFR) conditions prevailed at the time of the accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
The pilots' inadequate planning, judgment, and airmanship in the performance of a 180º turn maneuver inside of a limited turning space.

The accident airplane departed Teterboro Airport (TEB), Teterboro, New Jersey, about 1429 and was cleared for a visual flight rules (VFR) departure. According to air traffic control (ATC) transcripts, the pilots acknowledged that they were to stay out of the New York class B airspace. After takeoff, the accident airplane turned southeast and climbed to an altitude of about 600 to 800 feet. When the flight reached the western shore of the Hudson River, it turned to the south, remaining over the river, then descended to 500 feet. The flight continued southbound over the Hudson River until abeam of the southern tip of Manhattan, at which point, the flight turned southwest bound. Radar data from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, New York; Newark International Airport (EWR), Newark, New Jersey; and Westchester County Airport (HPN), White Plains, New York, indicated that the accident airplane's altitude varied from 500 to 700 feet for the remainder of the flight.

About 1436, the airplane flew around the Statue of Liberty then headed to the northeast, at which point, it proceeded to fly over the East River. About 1 mile north of the Queensboro Bridge, the airplane made a left turn to reverse its course. Radar contact was lost about 1442. The airplane impacted a 520-foot tall apartment building at 524 East 72nd Street, 333 feet above street level. 

The Safety Board's full brief is available at http://dms.ntsb.gov

New airport manager touches down in Steamboat

Stacy Fain has assumed her responsibilities as the Steamboat Springs Airport manager. Fain relocated to Steamboat from Colorado Springs to accept the position at Bob Adams Field.


Stacie Fain — pictured with her co-pilot, Rex, the new airport dog — has assumed the role as the Steamboat Springs Airport manager.



Steamboat Springs — Many people spend a good portion of their lives figuring out how they want to spend the rest of it.

Others, such as Stacie Fain, Steamboat Springs Airport’s new manager, have always known.

“My grandfather was a pioneer pilot for Braniff, and he did all the routes in South America and taught my mother to fly before she could drive,” Fain said Monday, only a week into her new role as head of Steamboat’s local airport. “I don’t remember when I got on my first airplane; I was probably about 2.”

Her grandfather’s flight story is a story unto itself. A barnstormer, he financed his own flight lessons by wing walking, Fain said, adding that some of her earliest memories are of attending airshows with him.

“I grew up in a family of aviators,” she said.

Beginning her own flight career in 1988, she has since amassed a soaring resume.

Certified as a private pilot, a commercial pilot and a flight instructor, Fain — who holds a master’s degree in aviation from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and is currently working toward her Ph.D in aviation — also spent about six years flying helicopters for the U.S. Coast Guard and still serves as a commander/captain select in the Coast Guard Reserve.

A native of Alexandria, Virginia, Fain spent the past 12 years in Colorado Springs working as owner, president and consultant for Ruby Aviation. Prior to that, she worked in business development for defense contractors.

Not surprisingly, the hiring panel tasked with engaging a new airport manager was unanimous in its decision to hire Fain from among 61 original candidates.

City Manager Gary Suiter said both her experience and community mindedness made her the best fit for the job.

"We had a lot of great candidates," Suiter said Monday. "What came across to me is that she obviously has the skills and experience, but more than that, she's community-minded. She understands the Western Slope and our economy, and we're thrilled to have her aboard."

And Fain is clearly equally thrilled to be aboard. She said she was attracted to the job both by the active Steamboat lifestyle and the caliber of its airport.

“I’ve always wanted to live in a small ski town, and I just found Steamboat to be charming,” she said. “When I saw the job opening here, I did a little bit of research on the airport and discovered what a gem it is, so I applied, and I was just thrilled when I got the opportunity to do this job.”

Describing the airport as “a diamond in the rough,” a phrase coined by Public Works Director Chuck Anderson, Fain said she wants to heighten community awareness of how crucial the airport is to Steamboat, both in terms of financial impact and quality of life.

“It really is a ‘diamond in the rough,’” she said. “It has a huge impact on the city of Steamboat Springs, but a lot of people don’t realize it. The economic impact is $8.8 million on the city, and it’s subsidized very little. … it’s just a great asset.”

Beyond the financial benefits, Fain added the airport — which currently accommodates 100 airplanes on the field — also serves as an educational hub for pilot instruction, a base for civil air patrol and emergency medical service operations and a staging area for aerial firefighting.

“I’m not here to make big changes to the airport, because it’s a wonderful airport,” she said. “I just am here to help add a few things that will make it a little bit better.”

Among her planned improvements, Fain wants to explore the possibility of adding a city-owned transient hangar — something the airport currently lacks and for which there is significant demand — as well as look into adding self-service fuel, another high-demand item.

She also wants to look into restructuring the airport’s ramp fees in an effort to attract more small, general-aviation aircraft to the city.

Finally, she said, she is committed to making the community aware of the tremendous asset it has in the airport.

“The reputation of this airport is so good, and the crew is so good,” she said. “It’s just a wonderful little airport.”

Having relocated to Steamboat with Rex, the Airport Dog, her canine companion and “co-pilot” for the past six years, Fain enjoys skiing, hiking, camping, yoga, gardening and reading.

Source:  http://www.steamboattoday.com

Firearm Theft Investigation: 3 Hawaiian Airlines Employees Arrested

Detectives and Officers from the Maui Police Department along with federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives arrested three Hawaiian Airlines employees in connection with several theft investigations.  The arrests were made on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2016.

In August of 2016, Hawaiian Airlines Corporate Security investigators reported to the Maui Police Department suspected employee theft involving their ramp agents and checked baggage belonging to passengers.


Specific were two incidents involving Hawaiian Airlines flights.


The first occurred on June 24, 2016 when a lawfully declared firearm was reported stolen from checked baggage while en route from Los Angeles, California to Hilo with a layover in Kahului.


The second occurred on July 28, 2016 when another lawfully declared firearm was reported stolen from checked baggage while traveling from Kahului to San Jose, California.


Both incidents were documented with Hawaiian Airlines as well as the Maui Police Department.


Source: http://mauinow.com

Cessna 180H Skywagon, N3483Y: Incident occurred October 10, 2016 in Brownsboro, Madison County, Alabama

http://registry.faa.gov/N3483Y

FAA Flight Standards District Office: FAA Birmingham FSDO-09

AIRCRAFT FORCE LANDED IN A FIELD, NEAR BROWNSBORO, ALABAMA.  
Date: 10-OCT-16
Time: 15:45:00Z
Regis#: N3483Y
Aircraft Make: CESSNA
Aircraft Model: 180
Event Type: Incident
Highest Injury: None
Damage: None
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
City: BROWNSBORO
State: Alabama




MADISON COUNTY, Ala. - A pilot made a safe landing in a field off Highway 72 East on Monday morning.

The airport had issued a call of an alert around 9:30 a.m. The single-engine plane landed safely about 9:45 a.m. on Jordan Road, near Shields Road and Ryland Pike.

The field is near a subdivision.

WHNT News 19 is working to get more information on what caused the pilot to change course.  Again, no injuries are reported.

Story and video:   http://whnt.com

Quicksilver aircraft stolen from Reigle Field Airport (58N), Palmyra, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania

PALMYRA, Pa. (WHTM) – Police in Lebanon County are investigating after a plane disappeared from a South Londonderry Township airport in the last few days.

The road that runs in front of the Reigle Airport is pretty busy, so police hope that means somebody saw something out of the ordinary.

Tim Bowles works on ultralight aircraft in the hangar he rents at the airport.

“I actually took the engine off of this to put on my Quicksilver,” Bowles said, referencing another small craft in the space.

Now the plane he put the engine into is missing.

“It was here,” he said. “I went on vacation, I came back and came down to go flying last Friday night and it was gone.”

The $10,000 aircraft would have been easy for someone to start up with just a pull-cord, like the one on a lawnmower motor.

He thinks someone literally took off with it.

“More than getting the airplane back, I’d really like to catch the people that stole it,” Bowles said.

South Londonderry Township police are working on it. It’s the first time the chief there can remember someone stealing a plane.

They’re calling other local airports and the Federal Aviation Administration for help.

“It was heartbreaking. Me and my grandkids, you know, we come down here and take rides,” Bowles said. “It would be like a biker having his motorcycle taken. He’s not a happy camper.”

The privately-owned airport has 50 hangars. It’s been around since 1942. There aren’t cameras, but police say the owners are helping as much as they can.

Bowles is calling around to local flying clubs and posting pictures online hoping someone recognizes it.

“You’re going to get caught,” Bowles warned. “That’s the bottom line. You’re going to get caught. There’s rare parts on that airplane. There’s parts on that airplane that there was only 120 of them made. So take your best shot with it, that’s all I can tell them.”

Anyone with information is asked to call the South Londonderry Township Police Department at 717-838-1376.

Story and video:  http://abc27.com



Enola resident Timothy Bowles reported Friday that a Quicksilver ultralight aircraft that he had hangared at Reigle Airport was stolen sometime on or after Wednesday, police said. 

The aircraft is yellow with red markings, according to police.

Police request anyone with information about the incident, or anyone who may have witnessed the aircraft leaving the airport, to call them at 717-272-2054 or 717-838-1376.

Source:   http://www.ldnews.com