Cory Lidle's plane crashes in NYC

Replacement player stuff aside - because that's really not the point in what happened yesterday, is it? - can the endless loop of issued statements stop? It sickens me to read and listen to them roll by like a stock ticker, no more personal and meaningful than the numbers on Wall St. These processed and calculated emotions shouldn't ever see the light of day. I get the need to get players' reactions, and some are genuine like Chris Woodward not wanting to play even before the game got rained out. But I listened to Barry Zito before game 2 yesterday saying how the incident really 'put things in perspective' because after all, what they do 'is just a game'. Is Crash Davis behind him pulling some doll string? David Montgomery, 'Is extremely saddened' with the rest of the Phillies family. Again, I get that you can't not write some of these reactions, but the posed ones really get to me and cheapen the humanity of the situation.

 

I haven't read much or seen much of the coverage, but I question that fuel problems were the only thing wrong with that plane. Why wouldn't you ditch in the river instead of veering over land? Water landings aren't much better on the passengers than hitting a high-rise, but most pilots would make that choice.

 

Hope I'm wrong, but I've got a better shot of starting for some team Opening Day next year than Fehr doing right by a scab.

And I couldn't agree more with Colonel Forbin re: the canned statements. But I don't expect anything more than robotic vacant fluff out of most of the "speakers."

 

years ago when i was on news side i wrote a feature about that plane (or maybe it was an earlier model but the company was on the verge of hitting it big) when it was brand new. the parachute contraption isn't made for whatever trouble lidle got into. it's designed for being out in the wide open sky and having engine failure.

 

Respectfully disagree completely. The statements might not be original or artistic, but what do you expect them to say? Everyone who ever knew Cory Lidle had a microphone shoved in her or her face yesterday...how many ways are there to describe the shock and horror and sadness, knowing whatever you say is going to be just another sound byte?

 

Makes me think that some of our brethren -- read: the ones who will always champion a good cause -- should apply some not-so-subtle pressure on Fehr to DO the right thing.

 

Obviously, even a paratrooper needs a couple hundred feet for a combat insertion drop. The parachute would be more trouble in that area, I would imagine, because then you've got absolutely no control over where you're going. But there was a mechanical problem with the control surfaces, pretty massive pilot error, bizarre weather condition or some combination of those to keep them from ditching in the river.[/aerospaceengineeringdegreeholder]

 

I asked about the weather in a post yesterday and folks in the area indicated it was cloudy and raining so it's possible they didn't know where they were until right before they hit the building.

 

Only concern I have with that is: Did Cory Lidle ever contribute to the association or its pension plan?

Hopefully, Lidle, his advisers and family were smart enough to plan ahead. Hopefully, he had life insurance. Hopefully, he saved and invested some of his earnings.

Pro athletes have short careers. Pitchers careers can end with their next pitch. They need to protect themselves and their families in those instances.

Obviously, you never expect to die at 34, but if you take the right steps, you can make sure your family is protected, regardless of what happens to you. I hope that's the case with Lidle's family.

 

That part about the column bothered me a little, too, quite frankly. From the set-up, I was expecting him to write that Lidle had offered to take him up yesterday, not just some vague whenever. Obviously, considering the flight time Lidle had logged, there were plenty of times where everything went OK, so it could have been on one of those days that Schwarz flew with him, had he chosen to.

 

I'm guessing that he flew the instructor to NYC so that the two of them could take his plane back to California. Better to have two pilots make a bunch of short trips than one. I know nothing about planes, but I would assume that Lidle could fly the plane without an instructor and that anyone could have sat in the seat where the instructor was seated.