On Friday I spoke with a co-worker who had lived in NYC for a time and was familar with the location where the accident occured. Between that and an on-line map of the area, along with some preliminary stuff from the NTSB, I offer the following revised scenario (and please do remember this can change further based on more information). Please do keep in mind there is quite a bit of speculation involved - I’ll try to make it clear what’s fact and what’s my mental wanderings.
This seems to be a variation on what I usually hear termed as the “box canyon problem”. Normally, this issue comes up in moutain flying, and the gist of the problem is that terrain can rise faster than an airplane can climb. When flying up-valley or up-canyon, it is possible to get into a situation where obstacles to either side made the airspace too narrow to turn around in, and the rising terrain ahead makes a wall the airplane can’t climb over in time. I am not an expert in mountain flying at all, but when I first flew in the Appalacians I was strongly cautioned about the dangers and warned to always fly above the ridgelines and never, ever, fly up-canyon (due to my inexperience and lack of required skills - for a trained and experienced pilot there are times when this can be done safely). If felt a need to fly a valley, start at the highest elevation/narrowest point and fly down and out, so the land falls away and the valley gets wider.
It doesn’t matter one bit if the canyon is natural or manmade. The Manhattan high rises make real canyons, even if they’re artificial. In one publication in the aviation media this was actually described as a “box canyon with a ceiling”. In this case, the ceiling was not just the upper limit of the VFR flying (which is an intangible barrier) but also the low cloud cover which would have forced them to keep low even without the regulatory “ceiling” above them. In some ways, that cloud barrier was more significant - bust the VFR flyway ceiling human authorities will be upset at you. Bust the cloud ceiling without an IFR flight plan you can get into physical trouble, like being unable to see where you’re going, spatial disorientation, or possible discovering that the famous “silver lining” of clouds in this case is made out of airplane aluminum. In flight school I was taught that if you have to make a choice between violating an airspace border and violating something like a cloud bank without proper preparation - violate the man-made invisible line and worry about sorting it out later. It’s much safer.
So, anyhow, they were flying above the East River. This is a narrow corridor. It is possible that niether of these pilots had any experience in mountain/canyon flying and even if there was adequate room for manuvering the walls of the buildings may have been close enough to generate psychological discomfort and anxiety. Or maybe not.
At the end of the East River, in front of them from their perspective, is LaGuardia airport airspace, which is Class B. Class B airspace requires permission from ATC to enter. It’s an invisible barrier, intangible, but there is a border there. Cross it and you will be noticed. “Busting” Class B can result in hefty fines or suspension (perhaps even loss) of pilot’s license. It doesn’t always have that result, but it’s certainly an option for the authorities.
Anyhow, from on-line pilots who fly in NYC I gather that most folks flying up the East River ask for and get clearance to traverse that airspace. You really only nick the edge of LaGuarida’s territory, and if you’re flying the VFR flyway altitudes you’ll pass a very safe distance under the commerical and other traffic going in and out of that airport. Or, if there’s some problem with contacting ATC or getting permission folks divert over Queens by turning right. This may result in violations concerning minimum altitudes over buildings, or it may not.
The thing is, niether of the two guys in this Cirrus are familar with NYC. One is a low time pilot - he’s got skills, but not a lot of actual experience. The other guy has time and experience in the cockpit, but he’s from California, which is considerably different territory than New York.
Anyhow - there they are, flying up the East River in a man-made canyon. It’s narrow. So narrow, in fact, it may not be possible to for them to make a U-turn in that flyway. There is some debate about that, and the reason for that depends on the capability of both pilots and aircraft. I’ve flown aircraft with a turning radius of 20 feet and aircraft that require 2000 feet. You can’t get a license without being able to make a safe 45 degree bank turn. While I’ve flown airplanes that could physically make 70 or 75 degree banks in level flight I don’t know if I could safely manage the manuver.
Suffice to say that the 2000-2500 foot wide corridor they were flying through was damn narrow for a 180 turn in a four-seat aircraft of typical capability. Also keep in mind that they weren’t flying along an edge, but down the center. So if they turned they wouldn’t have 2500 feet available but only around around half that. Maybe a little more than that if they altered their flight path to allow more room prior to making the turn, but they won’t have the full width to use for the turn radius. It is unlikely that the low-time pilot, despite his basic competence, is going to have the experience and skill to make that sort of turn with solid objects to either side. The higher-time pilot might - IF the turn is physically possible to begin with.
So, flying along a slot too narrow to allow a U-turn, heading towards a barrier… LaGuardia has no record of them making radio contact (all such radio contacts are recorded as a matter of course). Maybe they tried and couldn’t - buildings can block transmissions sometimes. Maybe they had the wrong frequency turned in. Maybe someone “stepped on” their tranmission and blocked it that way. Oh, dear - they don’t have permission to go through imaginary wall ahead. Oh, no. They’re about to break the rules.
Maybe they panicked. It does happen.
So, they have this sudden need to turn.
Here we get into human factors. In a high-stress or emergency situation, you tend to react as you have been trained and accustomed to doing so. 99 times out of a 100 (at least), turns in aviation are to the left. In a panic/startle situation pilots have a VERY strong tendency to go left.
And they did. They turned left. Right into the side of a building. Clearly demonstrating they did NOT have enough room to make a U-turn.
Here’s the sad thing: death may not have been inevitable.
For one thing, they could have turned RIGHT - and given their altitude they probably would have passed safely over Queens. They’d still have to be careful about LaGuardia’s airspace, and they might be lower than strictly legal, but they would be alive. Other pilots have done this - there are a fair number of NYC pilots posting such on aviation message boards.
The second alternative would have been to keep going forward. Yes, they would have busted Class B. That’s not good. Potentially, it’s a bunch of violations - entering Class B without permission, flying in a reckless manner, failure to adquately plan during preflight, etc., etc. Could be tens of thousands of dollars in fines, yes, maybe a suspension, it does go on your record… but they would be alive. More likely given the low time/inexperience of the putative pilot in command, this being a first time offense, and the fact that the danger factor would be low (they’d be on the very edge of the airspace - it IS a buffer zone) the FAA would probably not go for the maximum penalty. In fact, if the pilot is contrite - “Oh, boy, I made a mistake, had to bust airspace to keep from having an accident, sorry, what do you want me to do/how do I make this better” - and fill out his NASA form he might get off with just a verbal warning. I mean, better to bust a traffic rule than have an actual accident, right? Pilots actually ARE allowed some leeway for safety’s sake - you might have a three hour debriefing with the FAA over it and get your knuckles slapped, but few people screw up twice the same way (if you do, THEN they lower the boom on you). One violation of this sort on your record is not going to end a career. In any case - they would still be alive.
Third option - they could have ditched in the river. Other pilots have found a need to make an unscheduled water landing in the NYC waters and survived. It’s not fun and it is hazardous - but considerably less dangerous than slamming into a building at high speed.
Fourth option - not usually available. They could have pulled the parachute and landed in the river that way. You’ve only got about three minutes to get out of the airplane before it sinks, but it’s doable and again, the guys would be alive. Given that a plane being lowered by a giant parachute is going to attract some notice I’d expect someone would be along to pull them out of the water quite quickly. In fact, a couple months ago in Indiana a Cirrus airplane landed under parachute in a small lake - everyone got out alive except the pilot. Well, his son dragged him out of the airplane, but the medical problem he had just experienced proved fatal (his son - a non-pilot passenger sitting in the other front seat, had pulled the parachute handle). And sure enough, lots of people called 911 to report an airplane skydiving into a lake.
See, that’s one of the risks of aviation - you get yourself into a VERY bad situation, you have seconds (or less) to diagnose the problem and choose the CORRECT course of action, then do it - and you only get one chance. You do it right the first time or you may not ever do anything again. Then lots of other people sit back, spend days analysing your decision (which you had to make in just seconds or less), and critique your performance.
If I had found myself in that exact same position would I have made the right decision? I’d like to give an unqualified yes - but if I’m honest I have to admit I can’t be sure. I don’t care how skilled and experienced you are, you are human and you can still make mistakes. I have very little experience with canyons, I’ve never been to NYC, and I, like every other pilot I know, have left-turning tendencies. The potential is there. On the other hand, tens of thousands of flights have been made up the East River by pilots flying small planes in VFR conditions without incident. So history says that the vast majority of the time pilots will make the correct choices, even if that means rattling windows in Queens or annoying the LaGaurdia tower.
The lesson here for pilots is that you really need to understand the local hazards of where you fly, even if you’re from out of town. And you really have to think about what could wrong and how you’d deal with it. If, for example, you’re flying up the East River, you can’t make a U-turn in the available space, and you’re counting on permission being granted to enter Class B airspace you have to consider what happens if you DON’T get permission - and what you’re going to do then?. You have to understand that there ARE times when not only *can *you break the rules - you should, and worry about picking up the pieces later. It sure looks like these guys failed to plan that far in advance. Even if every other time they flew they were careful and thoughtful, this time they neglected to consider some fairly obvious possibilities, which was foolish. Aviation is not forgiving of fools - even if it’s the one-time foolishness of otherwise non-foolish people. And that’s a big reason why pilots sit around talking accidents to death - when faced with this situation you don’t have the time to do a leisurely analysis and a make a thoughtful decision. You have to react, quickly - but if you think about these problems beforehand, if you learn what others did wrong so you won’t (hopefully) do the same, if you try to figure out a viable solution, then the odds of you making the correct decision under pressure go up dramatically. Accident discussion and analysis is a significant part of pilot safety seminars and ground school study/refreshers. Emergency simulation - so you can practice the correct actions - is a significant part of flight training and flight practice. This has a lot to do with why aviation is safer than ever.
Personally, my greatest aviation ambition is to die an old pilot, in bed, in such a manner that it will not get into the headlines.
