[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Time gets it right, sort of..

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Time gets it right, sort of..
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1160684729.shtml


   From Time Magazine's [1]The Lidle Crash: "Too Much Plane"?

     The investigation into the crash of the small airplane owned by New
     York Yankees' pitcher Cory Lidle is just beginning, but already
     aviation experts and pilots are quietly speculating that it may be
     yet another case of "too much plane." Much like the crash that
     claimed the life of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and a friend in
     1999, there are signs that this may be a case of a relatively
     inexperienced pilot who ran into trouble in a high-performance
     plane that he had not yet mastered fully...

     ...According to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, the plane
     circled the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on the cloudy
     afternoon before heading uptown, where something went wrong. The
     plane's flight path was completely "legal" â operating in approved
     air space and under clear regulations. Small planes and helicopters
     are permitted to fly up and down Manhattan Island, over either the
     East River or the Hudson River in the west. Since much of the
     surrounding air space is the busiest in the U.S. â with hundreds of
     airliners and business jet flights going in and out of John. F.
     Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark International and Teterboro airports,
     small planes are required to fly below 1,100 feet.

   I haven't flown for a while, but if I was current and up to day, as a
   private pilot, it would be legal for me to fly over the East River and
   the Hudson River under visual flight rules without filing a flight
   plan. As a private pilot, the same rules applied to Lidle. Those rules
   only apply for flying over the water. Flying over the city itself is
   much more restricted and much more tightly regulated. Lidle's
   inexperience appears to have been the problem.

   Time got that right, then they went on to get it wrong in today's
   Time/CNN poll, asking:

     Should small planes routinely be allowed to fly directly over big
     cities?
     Yes
     No

   If an elderly man had caused high-profile crash by accidentally going
   off the road and plowing headlong into a bunch of racing NASCAR
   drivers, it wouldn't make much sense to use that news as a prompt to
   ask if men above a certain age should be allowed to participate in
   NASCAR.

   This was an accident, like the thousands of low profile accidents that
   happen in New York City every year.

References

   1. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1545317,00.html?cnn=yes