Aircraft crashes into New York apartment building

NEW YORK - A small plane with New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle aboard crashed into a 50-story condominium tower Wednesday on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, killing two people and raining flaming debris on sidewalks, authorities said. Yankees’ owner George M. Steinbrenner confirmed Lidle was one of the two dead.
A law enforcement official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lidle was on the plane. And Federal Aviation Administration records showed the single-engine plane was registered to the athlete. A passport belonging to Lidle, an avid pilot who got his flying license after last year's offseason, was reportedly found on the street below the crash site.
The law enforcement official said the plane had issued a distress call before the crash. The official said it was unknown whether Lidle was at the controls.
Earlier reports had cited four bodies found; the city’s medical examiner’s office later confirmed only two people had died.
The FBI and the Homeland Security Department said there was no evidence it was a terrorist attack. “The initial indication is that there is a terrible accident,” Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said. Nevertheless, fighter jets were sent aloft over U.S. cities as a precaution, the Pentagon said.The plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit the 20th floor of The Belaire — a red-brick tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from the World Trade Center — with a loud bang, touching off a raging fire that cast a pillar of black smoke over the city and sent flames shooting from four windows on two adjoining floors.
"This is a terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the entire Yankees organization. I offer my deepest condolences and prayers to his wife Melanie, and son Christopher, on their enormous loss," Steinbrenner said in a statement on Thursday.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference Wednesday that the plane left from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey at 2:20 p.m. The airport is 12 miles from midtown Manhattan.