"Jim Macklin" wrote in message
news:YLhXg.2547$XX2.2048@dukeread04...
Google for "524 e 72nd st.,new york city" and look at the
sat photo. There is a soccer field just northeast across
the river. IF they were having some engine problem, that
could have looked like the best place to land. Passing the
tops of the buildings and with probable winds aloft being
twice as strong as surface winds [maybe 25 kts. ] and the
venturi effect, the plane could have easily been turned
directly into the building. Just a guess.

I don't understand your scenario. They'd have been flying north along the
east shore of the narrow river, then making a U-turn to fly south along the
west shore. Aside from the river itself, plausible nearby landing sites are
along the east shore and on the island in the middle of the river; I don't
see how heading for those sites would have led them to crash on the west
side of the river. (Plus, there was no distress call or other indication of
engine problems.)

If they flew too fast, making the turn too wide (which is my guess), they'd
have hit the north side of a building on the west shore--which they did.

--Gary




"Blasto" wrote in message
ups.com...
| 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
|