I am really wondering about this crash. He was an excellent pilot, flying in a plane equipped with a parachute. The weather was totally fine. (It started raining an hour later, clouds were at 18,000 feet.) He was flying up the East Side of Manhattan, and turned west. It makes no sense. The must've been a serious problem with the plane or something. And you have to have serious psychological problems to try to kill yourself--it takes more than a bad playoff game. Of course I'm thinking about his demeanor on the radio the other day. I listened to him talk for fifteen minutes. He definitely seemed pissed. Pissed enough to purposely crash into a building? I don't know. But I didn't know the guy. People say he loved to fly, so I'm sure it was just an accident.

And the Munson comparison, well, I don't see a similarity beyond "baseball player in plane crash." Munson was the captain and heart of the Yankees. Lidle happen to play his last few months with them. Both tragic plane crashes, that's where the similarities end.

It was weird hearing people at work saying "plane hit building." They said 72nd Street. I thought, Wow, right near us. But I didn't know until I called my mom--to tell her I was okay, since surely she'd hear about a plane crash on the Upper East Side and worry--that it was right down the avenue I was on.

I grabbed the "work" camera and took some photos, amongst others doing the same thing. Then I went over to the river. The photos are below if you scroll down. I got down as far as 75th Street (on that walkway in my picture from a few days ago, between the East River and FDR Drive) before a police officer told everyone to turn back.

Great job by my co-worker, who volunteers for the Red Cross, to call them and see if she could help. When I got back to the office, she was on her way out to get her gear.

Then I took a long walk home, as the rain fell. I was drenched by the time I got to the post office to pick up my Gedman-worn Cardinals jersey. I got home, peeled off my dripping clothes, and played my messages. My mom said something about Cory Lidle. Huh? And now it's pretty much confirmed. What a crazy day. Lots of talk about whether they'll play the Mets game tonight. From a weather perspective, it doesn't seem like they could play anyway.

Oh, and it's also weird that some Yankee players live right near where the crash happened. I really hope he wasn't trying to fly by a teammate's building or something like that. We should all hope this was just an accident that couldn't be avoided.