Asymmetrical Information

Thank God you're alright. Is the crash site near where you live?

"MarketWatch" just attributed a drop in the DOW to that.
Hope Jane is unaffected, prayers (and secular concern) for those that are.

First the reports said it was a helicopter, then a small fixed-wing aircraft, then a helicopter again. Who knows what it'll turn out to be. Hopefully there was no one in the apartments hit by the aircraft or directly below it on the ground. Anyone who was in the aircraft itself is through, of course.

I looked at the picture and terrorism is unlikely because they hit a corner -- a suboptimal target for a terrorist in a light plane because there's half as much area within a given radius of the impact point on a corner rather than n a side, and buildings are stronger in the corners. A terrorist would certainly hit a side if they knew what they were doing.

-dk

It's worth pointing out that today is the 11th. 9/11 in 2001, 3/11 in Spain....

2 people dead.

So far.

I doubt this building is coming down. They'll probably have that fire out shortly. That plane was carrying 80 gallons of jet fuel (tops) whereas those 757s that hit the WTC were fuly fueled up to 5000 gallons or more.

I doubt that this was an Islamic Terrorist. I'm thinking more likely some fruitcake who woke up this morning, didn't take his Prozac, and saw the callendar this morning had the number "11" on it for the day. He figured he'd make himself famous.

No need to panic.

paul,

well you don't know.

i, too, would put my money on an accident or suicide instead of something more nefarious. the type of major attack involving 737s is pretty much obsolete for obvious reasons, and there's enough pressure on large groups that the big plots will almost always get caught (even the big fake plots like the sears tower deal,) because of the number of people involved. i think small attacks are much more likely these days, and if done right, potentially more damaging in an army of really alienated davids kind of way.

and regardless of intent, it did scare the whole city -- as jane's post (and all the comments on gothamist) will attest.

Now the latest reports say that the pilot of the aircraft had made an emergency call about a fuel problem.

Another update: reports now say that the aircraft was registered to Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle.

Weird -- I think that's the same building my cousin used to live in, and where I stayed for a time when I first moved to NYC for grad school. Don't recall the floor, but it was fairly high up and facing the river: just like the area of impact.

Now it looks like it was the building across the street. Still feels pretty strange.

It's now been confirmed that it was Cory Lidle, a pitcher for the NY Yankees baseball team, and a flight instructor.

I wonder how many planes crashed into buildings before and we never remembered because there wasn't something memorable that it reminded us of.

Yeah, this would have never happened if the Yankees had made it to the ALCS.

Yeah, this would have never happened if the Yankees had made it to the ALCS.

More deaths to lay at the feet of those Tigers.

Thank you, Paul, for the illuminating comment. Now it's clear to everyone that most everything you say should be double-wrapped in day-old newspaper and tossed in the trash.

Cheers,

"the type of major attack involving 737s is pretty much obsolete for obvious reasons." Err, not quite. Anyone trying to hijack a passenger plane in regular service is going to get mobbed by the passengers, but I can see some possibilities:

1) Charter airplanes. I doubt that we can prevent all Saudi multimillionaires from renting an airliner for themselves and a few friends - and I doubt our intelligence is good enough to be 100% sure of catching the case where those friends are suicidal Islamists.

2) Freight planes. These are mostly just modified airliner, you don't have to worry about passengers, and you might be able to load it with flammable cargo. There are at least three possibilities for putting a suicidal terrorist at the controls: get a job as a pilot and wait (probably years) for the right time, kidnap an aircrew and substitute your people (takes lots of planning and fake ID's), or get a job as cargo handlers and use that access to smuggle hijackers aboard.

All the cargo plane possibilities take long range planning over a year or more, but AQ used to be quite capable of that, and some cells may still be - or there may be other terrorist organizations that we just don't know much about yet. That last possibility worries me the most, because immigrants often get into jobs like cargo handling because they're the only ones that really want them.

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