The crash has left several people without homes for the holidays because of fire or water damage in 70 of the building's 130 apartments. Owners have fretted over repairs, insurance policies and property values. Industrial air filters have rumbled in the hallways at all hours. Contractors have monopolized elevators.

Lidle crash impact lingers at high-rise [AP]
[Photo: Getty]

According to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Bob Cartwright, whose friend and personal pilot died in the plane crash that also killed the New York Yankees pitcher, and two other men died when their private plane crashed into the shoreline of Big Bear Lake, near Cartwright's mountain home in Sugarloaf, Calif. Last month Cartwright's friend, Tyler Stanger, invited him to a playoff game between the Yankees and Detroit Tigers, but Cartwright couldn't make it. Lidle and Stanger died Oct. 11 when their plane crashed into an apartment building in New York City.

Plane Crash Kills Man Who Skipped Lidle Flight [MSNBC]
Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of Corey Lidle

2nd bolt from blue [NYDN]

Lidle's benefits could be in jeopardy [SI]

Yankees need a change [AMNY]

I heard this on WFAN at about 1 a.m. A guy called up the show and said that Joe Beningo (a WFAN host) was on Nancy Grace and she was trying to get him to say that Corey Lidle's plane crash was no accident and that it was suicide.

The Suicide Question Re Corey Lidle [NYO]

Earlier: Cory Lidle Plane Crash: Morning Roundup, Plane Crash: 'Post' Just Can't Resist

• The New York Daily News identifies the second fatality as Tyler Stanger, Cory Lidle's flight instructor, who was based out of Pomona, California. Stanger's wallet was found at the scene of the crash.

• The New York Post floods the zone, and they're characteristically unafraid to bring up the literally gory details: "Last night, one of the victims remained strapped in his seat in the mangled cockpit, which lay on the street in front of the building. The body of the other victim had been torn in half, with the lower part of his torso still missing." Niiice. Then there's more digging into Lidle's obsession with flying, background on his plane, more details about the Belaire, the building Lidle's plane struck ("It's designed to take impact," says architect Frank Williams), sensational coverage of Belaire resident Ilana Benhuri surviving the plane hitting her apartment ("Escape from 40-Story Hell"), and mention of the scene where Lidle's wife gets the bad news from her sister after arriving at a California airport.

• The New York Times rounds out the morning with a look at Lidle The Man, analysis on the dangerous flight area where the crash occurred, and a bitchin' interactive graphic.

Earlier: Plane Crash: 'Post' Just Can't Resist, Great Moments in Journalism: From the Air

It's a tough call as to whether or not this is worse than ESPN's "Lidle, Munson share a connection" (um, yeah), but, at the very least, it certainly out-tackies the News'

We suppose we should at least be thankful that there's no bubble reading "Best (and Most Accurate) Plane Crash Coverage in Town!"

'BOMBER' PILOT CRASHES PLANE [NYP]

• CNN reports that, shortly before the plane crashed, it issued a distress call about fuel trouble.

• No other fatalities, with most reported injuries coming from firefighters and police responding to the scene. The New York Times reports at least one person home in one of the apartments struck, the wife of a Dr. Parviz Benhuri, escaped with a few burns. The NYT also notes that one of the other tenants is Marvin R. Shanken, publisher of Cigar Aficionado.

• CNN's Larry King spoke with Cory Lidle's twin brother, Kevin Lidle, as well as New York Yankee's pitching coach Ron Guidry. Rush transcript after the jump.

LARRY KING, CNN HOST: We have lots of guests throughout the hour but we begin on the phone from Lakeland, Florida, with Kevin Lidle, Cory Lidle's twin brother. Thank you so much for spending this time with us, Kevin. We really appreciate it. How did you learn of this today?

KEVIN LIDLE, CORY LIDLE'S TWIN BROTHER (on phone): I was actually at work. And what I do, I teach baseball. And I was in between lessons with some kids and a buddy of mine called and he kind of started yelling in the phone, it was Cory's plane, it was Cory's plane.

And I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. And he finally

— he finally spit it out and said the plane registered with your brother's name crashed into a building in New York. And I — I couldn't believe it.

KING: Did you know he was flying today?

LIDLE: No, I did not. I talked to him yesterday. I didn't ask him when he was leaving New York or anything like that. Just in the normal conversation that I had with him frequently. You know, basically he was going to make some plans to go out to Phoenix and watch my baseball team play baseball out there.

KING: You have a team that plays in the winter league?

LIDLE: I play in an adult league, baseball, in Orlando and we're going out for the world series in Phoenix. And I had advised him to go and he wasn't going to be able to go because obviously he expected the Yankees to still be playing.

And when they got eliminated, you know, he called me and said, "When are you going to be out there? I want to fly out there." So, you know, that's the last conversation I had with him.

KING: Were you worried, Kevin, when he took up flying?

LIDLE: Not — I wouldn't say worried. I guess I had a little concern, like, you know, when he first told me I was like, why? But apparently he had flown in a private plane and really enjoyed it and learned to fly.

And I never questioned it. And I'm not — I'm not one to worry, you know, I'm not going to go along worrying every day of my life because he's flying. You know, I just hope for the best. And today was unbelievable news to me. I still — it still hasn't sunk in.

KING: How close were you, Kevin?

LIDLE: Well, we were really close, although over the last few years I had been living in Florida and he's been in California when he wasn't playing. So we didn't see each other all the time. But we talked on the phone quite a bit. And growing up, you know, we're twin brothers, we both played baseball. We competed at everything. And for that matter, we were as close as you could be while you're 3,000 miles apart.

KING: Identical twins?

LIDLE: We're actually fraternal. We look identical, but we are fraternal.

KING: Now, you have quite a high school team, right? You caught him, right?

LIDLE: I caught him in high school. Along with both the Giambi brothers, Jason and Jeremy, Aaron Small played on that team, Shawn Wooten and myself. So we made up a pretty solid team.

KING: What, Kevin, what kind of guy was he?

LIDLE: Cory — Cory was a normal person. And when I say that, if you were to meet him on the street, Larry, you would not know that he was a New York Yankee or a professional ballplayer. He's not one to brag and boast. He has — had a tremendous sense of humor. He loved to laugh and he was good at making other people laugh.

KING: He was also, I'm told, very outspoken, true?

LIDLE: Yes, he was not afraid to speak his mind. It got him in a little bit of trouble every once in a while, but that was him. You know? And I'm sure — I'm sure he wouldn't regret anything — he sees this level-minded and sometimes, he just would speak his mind.

KING: Kevin, here's a statement from your former high school teammate and the great Yankee Jason Giambi, a long-time friend of you and Cory.

Jason said, "Right now I'm really in a state of shock, as I am sure the entire major league baseball family is. My thoughts are with Cory's relatives and the loved ones of the others who were injured or killed in this plane crash. I have known Cory and his wife Melanie for over 18 years and watched his son grow up. We played high school ball together and have remained close throughout our careers. We were excited to be reunited in New York this year and I'm just devastated to hear the news."

Was Cory happy to come to the Yankees, Kevin?

LIDLE: Oh, he — he was ecstatic. I had talked to him the day he got traded. And, you know, I congratulated him. And he says, yep, this is gonna be different. And obviously it's the biggest stage in the world.

And he was very excited. He didn't know what the future held with the Yankees, but I know he was — he was hoping that they were going to ask him to come back.

KING: Have you spoken, Kevin, to your parents?

LIDLE: I've spoken to my mother and my father. They're — they're obviously having a tough time, but what can you do? I mean, somehow you hang in there and get through it.

I don't know that it has hit them as hard as it's going to hit him.

And I can say the same for me, I've had a lot of calls from friends and family you know, people calling and crying and they've released some emotions.

And I haven't done that yet. I don't know, I guess I'm in some kind of state of shock. I just got home about a half hour ago and saw a TV for the first time. And it was kind of weird the first thing that really hit me hard was I saw a picture of him and underneath it said 1972-2006.

That was the first thing that I looked at and I was like, that does not look right.

KING: Have you talked to his wife?

LIDLE: I have not. From what I understand, she was on her way home from New York, flying to California at the time. And I believe her plane landed in between a half hour and an hour ago.

KING: We're going to hold you a couple more minutes, OK, Kevin?

LIDLE: OK.

KING: I really appreciate it. Coming up, more with Cory's twin brother, Kevin. More words of sympathy and support from some baseball breaks. As we go to break, some video of Cory doing what he enjoyed most when he wasn't playing baseball.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: That was Brian Cashman very young general manager of the New York Yankees.

With us on the phone is Kevin Lidle, Cory Lidle's twin brother. And joining us also by phone is Ron Guidry, the New York Yankees pitching coach and one of the all-time great left-handers in major league baseball.

Ron, do you know Kevin?

RON GUIDRY, NEW YORK YANKEES PITCHING COACH: No, I don't think I've met Kevin. You know, my condolences go out to Kevin and all of the Lidle family. It's quite a shock, especially when, you know, you just left. And I was just reflecting on the last few days of the season, talking to Cory, and trying to plan, you know, next year and everything else.

And it's — it's really hard to accept and, you know, it makes what happens today, you know, it makes the end of the season seem immaterial to what happened today.

KING: Kevin, was he enjoying New York?

LIDLE: Oh, yes. He was loving it up there. Cory, in my opinion, was

— he liked to be on the big stage. I think when he was on the big stage, I think he, I don't know if he concentrated more, but he seemed to get more out of himself against tougher teams. And a lot was expected of you as a player in New York. And those are the kinds of things that Cory thrived on.

KING: What was he like to coach, Ron?

GUIDRY: Well, he was fun to coach. When he first came to us, you know, the only time that I got to see him was, you know, on television.

I saw him a little while when he was in Philly.

And then when I got him over here, you know, the one thing that I found out about him is, you know, he was a bulldog. He didn't have, you know, what pitchers say is overpowering stuff, but you have to respect him because he knew how to pitch with the stuff that he had.

And he always battled every time no matter what the circumstances were.

You know when he would go out to take the mound that he was going to give it his best shot. As a pitcher, that's all you can do when you go out there.

KING: Kevin, was he, for want of a better term, was he fearless?

LIDLE: Yes, he — he was fearless. He's a true competitor. He — he liked to — he knew what his job was. His philosophy on pitching was basically work ahead, work fast, and get out of, you know — he liked to try to go three pitches on each hitter.

If you're afraid of hitters, it's tough to do that. I mean, you have to get after those guys and that's what he tried to do. You know, I would watch a lot of his ball games on TV and it wasn't out of the ordinary to see him in the sixth or seventh inning with 70 or 80 pitches and doing just what he knew he needed to do, you know.

KING: Did he want to pretty much fly the rest of his life?

LIDLE: Yes. I never really got into a deep conversation about flying with him. As a matter of fact, I had never flown with him. But I do know this, this spring when he was in Clearwater, I went out to visit him and I went up to the apartment and he waved me over to the window and he had — I don't even know what it was. It was some kind of device for a plane.

He was reading the weather and telling me how much these clouds are going nine knots and the air is going — he was way out of my league when he was talking about that, but I knew at that point right there when he got out of his car, went in his house, he went over to his little toy. And, yes, to make a long story short, he loved it.

KING: Kevin, any funeral plans that you know of yet?

LIDLE: Not yet. I assume I'm going to find out a lot more tomorrow.

I still need to talk to his wife.

KING: Yes.

LIDLE: And I — I'm devastated to — I don't — that's going to be really, really hard.

KING: I don't think it's set into you yet.

LIDLE: I know for a fact it hasn't set into me yet.

KING: Thank you for talking to us. I can't tell you how much we appreciate it. It's difficult time, Kevin.

LIDLE: Thank you.

Earlier: Cory Lidle Plane Crash: Evening Wrapup, Cory Lidle's "High-Risk" Lifestyle

• From the AP: "Mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark, daughter of author Mary Higgins Clark, lives on the 38th floor but was not home at the time. She described the building's residents as a mix of actors, doctors, lawyers and writers, and people with second homes."

• Newsday provides a helpful primer on other baseball players who have died in plane crashes (last paragraph).

Earlier: Cory Lidle's "High-Risk" Lifestyle, Plane Crash Inconveniences Alec Baldwin

The flying? I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane.

Lidle the pilot well-aware of conditions in contract
Todd Zolecki INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Phillies pitcher Cory Lidle likes to fly planes in his spare time. It's a risk, but then so is walking on freshly buffed hardwood floors near a flight of stairs.

However, there is specific language in Lidle's contract that states that he risks the guaranteed portion of his deal - he signed a guaranteed two-year, $6.3 million contract before the 2005 season - if he is injured while flying.

"I think riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a lot more dangerous than being a low-time private pilot," Lidle said yesterday at Citizens Bank Park.

Lidle referred to Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was seriously hurt Monday in a motorcycle crash. The Phillies told Lidle in spring training of the risks he is taking in regard to his contract. But Lidle is not about to stop flying.

"You're obviously protecting the investment, but you're protecting the player," said Ruben Amaro Jr., the Phillies' assistant general manager. ". . . When we sign the guys, we sign them to have them on the field."

The Phillies are specific in their contract language - and it is a long, detailed list. The areas of concern typically include riding or driving in any kind of race, flying, parachuting, skydiving, gliding or hang gliding, hot-air ballooning, snow skiing, jet skiing, waterskiing, surfing, hunting, mountain climbing and kayaking.

It is not clear if motorcycle riding is a violation.

But then there are more unusual banned activities such as fencing, rodeo participation, bobsledding, luge, polo, jai alai, spelunking, and participating in a TV show or movie that involves physical activities.

Players are forbidden in contracts from using machinery such as motorized drills, saws or mowers. They also cannot play racquetball, squash, softball, tennis, badminton, football (touch or tackle), basketball, soccer, ice hockey and volleyball.

There's even more.

"The flying?" Lidle said. "I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane."

Earlier: Plane Crash Inconveniences Alec Baldwin, Plane Crash Craigslist Ads: Please Stop Sending Them

Reuters Photo [via Citizen Journal]

Earlier: Plane Crash Craigslist Ads: Please Stop Sending Them, At Least Two Confirmed Dead in Lidle Plane Crash

$800 Great, furnished room - just opened today (10/11) - UES - amazing! (Upper East Side)

Reply to: see below
Date: 2006-10-11, 4:17PM EDT

Huge - 15 x 12 BR - in 2 BR apartment on 39th Floor of great 50-story building - doctors downstairs for all you single women! I am looking for a fun, female roommate who can deal with a little bit of construction and activity in the apartment in the coming days, weeks, maybe months.

Room has a new Ikea furniture - desk, dresser and matching bed - and used to share a wall with the living room.

Features:
-New kitchen
-New tile in bathroom
-Bath with whirlpool streams
-Plasma TV (my ex gave it to me)
-4 blocks from Subway

Only problems:
-No pets
-No loud music
-Fixed wing aircraft fuselage burning in the living room - lots of smoke in there!

I will be away from my apartment phone for a while - e-mail me for deets!

524 E. 72nd St.

Earlier: At Least Two Confirmed Dead in Lidle Plane Crash, Ex-Teammate on Lidle: 'Just Wants to Fly and Gamble'

• CNN claims that Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was the sole occupant of his plane when it crashed into the highrise apartment building; Deadspin notes that at his press conference, Mayor Bloomberg said there was a passenger (supposedly a flight instructor) as well.

• The New York medical examiner's office confirms two dead; breaking reports indicate Lidle is indeed one of the dead (his passport was found on the street below the building's impact hole), and the other was also on the plane, as opposed to inside the building.

• One of Lidle's former flight instructors in the New York Times, quoted on September 8: "''He was probably my best student ... He learned very, very quickly, and a lot of it is desire. He had huge desire. 'Really, anyone can learn how to fly. If you can drive a bus, you can fly an airplane. But to learn quickly takes money and time. Of course, Cory had plenty of money, and it was the off-season, so he had the time.''

[Photo: Getty Images]

Earlier: NY Yankee Cory Lidle Piloted Crashed Plane

Mayor Bloomberg has confirmed that Lidle had a passenger with him on the plane.

Lidle Crash Coverage [Deadspin]

Previously:
NY Yankee Cory Lidle Piloted Crashed Plane
First Photos: Plane Crashes in UES Building

Plane That Crashed Into NYC Building Licensed To Lidle [Deadspin]

Earlier: First Photos: Plane Crashes into Manhattan Building

UPDATE: And a tipster sends in a few more flamey shots, also after the jump.

Reader-submitted images:

Earlier: Breaking: Airborne Vehicle Crashes on UES

Apparently a small plane has crashed into an apartment building at 72nd and York. Details are few and far between; we suggest that you immediately panic and speculate irresponsibly about possible terrorist attacks. We'll update you as we learn more; until then check in with Gothamist, this is the kind of shit they live for.

Aircraft crashes into NYC building [MSNBC]
Aircraft crashes into New York building [AP, which places 72nd and York "near Rockefeller Center."]

UPDATE: The A.P. brings you some important perspective: Rich people live there.

The address of the building is 524 E. 72nd Street — a 50-story condominium tower built in the late 1980s and located near Sotheby's Auction House. The Belaire Condo, developed by William Zeckendorf Jr., has 183 apartments, many of which sell for more than $1 million.

Okay, now we're paying attention.