I’m working in a building at 70th and York. It’s pretty creepy, you can see my building in the video footage. Just about every emergency vehicle in Manhattan must be here. It’s pretty smoky and hectic, and I called everyone I knew just when the story hit the airwaves.
I hope people aren’t hurt. 
I guess the No. 6 will be out of commission for awhile, and there are no other East Side subways! A minor inconvenience (and none at all for me, I’m West Side), of course.
I wonder how far through the building the plane went? Not very, I hope, if it was a small plane. The “people trapped above the fire” is what has me worried.
It seems like it hit high enough and the building is large enough that they could exit out the other side.
Yep, AP just reported two dead. Damn.
If Sept 11 taught us anything, it’s that roof rescues are slow and unreliable and dangerous. Your best bet is to go down, not up.
I don’t know if that would work. The way I remember it, Doper pilots said that in the case of the WTC, choppers wouldn’t have been able to get close because of the rising hot air from the fires.
I really doubt this is terrorism (lone nut, maybe, but not an organized thing), but the wondering is terrible. When the plane went down in Queens in November '01 and when that townhouse in Manhattan blew up in July, you could be pretty sure it wasn’t terrorism.
Beat you by [url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7859396&postcount=16]4 minutes[/url ].
NORAD’s scrambling jets over several major cities.
I’m with you that it’s just an accident or a lone guy but it’s safe to say we’ll not react even to minor things like this the same for a long, long time to come.
There’s not much smoke coming off it anymore, and things are pretty much under control, I think. Supposedly, they’ll have it mostly cleaned up on the street by 5PM. At least, that’s what they’re saying.
But how am I going to get home? I live in Brooklyn!
My 3rd or 4th thought today was “crazy Hungarian doctor,” but practically none of them are private pilots.
The bldg has apparently been evacuated (Fox News again). Hopefully including the floors above the fire?
Anybody besides me wondering about dirty bombs?
Yeesh. There was hazmat tape around the site early on. You’d think the hazmat teams have geiger counters.
I wasn’t until you mentioned it, but I believe the NYPD & FDNY both break out test kits for NBC attacks (Nuclear, Biological or Chemical). They have had enough time to test by now.
The FDNY appear to have the fire out. Great Job. Those flames looked fierce.
Jim
Made all the more scary by the acrobatics?
(Thanks, ThePCapeman.)
Good. This should slow down the commute, but the 4/5/6 should still be running. The FDR drive, however, will be filled with rubber-neckers and not going anywhere even moreso than usual (if it is even open).
According to CNN, the aircraft was a four-passenger Cirrus 20 fixed-wing aircraft. Modern navigation equipment, which shouldn’t have malfunctioned.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it didn’t.
~Tasha
And Payne Stewart’s plane shouldn’t have had a loss of cabin pressure, but it did.
I’m thinking maybe pilot error, heart attack or something?
[Garp]
We’ll take it!
[/Garp]
You’re quite right that they do. My other brother who’s in the Marines is a SSgt. with CBRRF (“see-berf”), which is a chemical, biological, radiological response force. They have worked with, equipped, and trained the FDNY in the use of immediate response tests to determine if there are any of the above present at an accident/attack site. They CBRRF’s are the guys you see in the chem suits on the news every time someone spills toner on the ground at the Dirksen Federal Building.
I’ve only flown small aircraft a few times, when I was a teenager, but I seem to recall that if you’re fucking around enough it’d be easy to lose control of a plane. Am I right? Any pilots have any better information on that?
~Tasha