Plane crashes into New York apartment block

A small private aircraft carrying a member of New York's beloved Yankee's baseball team smashed into a 50-storey apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan yesterday afternoon, briefly scrambling the nerves of the island's residents just five years after the Twin Tower attacks. It was confirmed overnight that Cory Lidle, a 34-year-old pitcher who recently joined the Yankees, was aboard the plane when it crashed.

He had only told fans last weekend of his pursuit of a pilot's licence and of his acquisition of the aircraft, a brand new Cirrus propeller plane.

The accident happened on a gloomy afternoon in New York and shattered the peace of the expensive Upper East Side neighbourhood. The plane ploughed into an apartment at about the 30th floor, setting off a fire and filling the sky with black smoke. Parts of the plane, including one of its wings, fell into 72nd Street below, immediately behind the US headquarters of Sotheby's auctioneers.

Officials said there were two people on board and that both had died. It was thought that Mr Lidle was accompanied by a flight instructor. It wasn't clear who had been at the controls of the single-engine plane.

Sixteen other people, thought to have been inside the building at the time were admitted to local hospitals with non-critical injuries. The crash occurred at about 2.40pm, shortly before the start of a heavy rain.

For an anxious few moments, residents of Manhattan were transfixed by a new tragedy that had so many echoes of 9/11. Speculation swirled that another terror attack may have been under away. Even Norad, the northern strategic command, ordered jet aircraft to scramble.

First news of the crash triggered a massive response from emergency responders from all across Manhattan, who flooded into the area with fleets of ambulances and fire engines. As the true nature of the accident and of the relative lightness of the death toll emerged, many began to leave the area and thousands of nearby residents who were initially evacuated were allowed back to their homes.

What caused the accident remained a mystery, however. The aircraft had left Teterborough airport in New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River about 15 minutes earlier, and made a loop around the Statue of Liberty before starting northwards up the East River. It appeared it was engaged in nothing more than a sight-seeing trip.

Witnesses in the busy neighbourhood said they saw the plane flying erratically shortly before impact, dipping from side to side and quickly losing altitude. The pilot was flying under visual conditions with no official flight plan and direct discourse with air traffic controllers. One report suggested that a May Day message may have been sent moments before the crash, describing some kind of fuel problem.

"I just saw something come across the sky and crash into that building, " said Young May Cha, 23, a Cornell University medical student who was walking along 72nd Street. "There was fire, debris... The explosion was very small."

Officials applauded the quick response of New York's emergency workers. "Everything we planned to respond to an emergency like this was carried out by the book," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

No one who was on the scene during the awful hours after the impact of the jetliners on 9/11 could have pushed away those memories as they raced towards 72nd Street yesterday. Once again, the streets were a raucous bedlam of sirens and frightened residents reaching for cell phones.

"It was a 747," one woman blurted as reporters rushed by. But once at the 72nd Street block yesterday, it was quickly clear that nothing as big as a Boeing had struck the red-brick Belaire building. While there was a clear gash in its north façade, it was relatively minor. While many local residents fled the area, some lingered close by anxious about neighbours and friends, and some crying. "I was worried the building would explode, so I got out of there fast," said Lori Claymont, who fled an adjoining building. The Yankees played their last game of the 2006 season at the weekend and Mr Lidle told reporters of his new love of flying. And he boasted of his plane's safety features.

"The whole plane has a parachute on it," Lidle said. " Ninety-nine per cent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you're up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the plane goes down slowly."

Whatever happened in the skies yesterday, deploying a parachute was apparently not an option, either because the plane was already too low or because of its proximity to buildings ­ an area it should never have been in. Penetrating airspace over Manhattan or over Queens to the East is strictly prohibited.

While there was at least some sense of relief last night that what occurred was simply a tragic accident, it will inevitably raise fears anew among high-rise residents in Manhattan about their apparent vulnerability to aircraft that veer suddenly off course or are deliberately steered into disaster.

Death of a baseball star by Thair Shaikh

Cory Lidle, 34, joined the New York Yankees as a pitcher in a controversial transfer in July, during which he accused his former colleagues in the Philadelphia Phillies of not always backing him.

After the rocky start, he settled down and played 31 games in the 2006 season. His salary was thought to be $3.3m. Just under six-feet tall, he was powerfully built and had a "fast ball" that would hurtle towards the batter at just under 100mph. Born 22 March 1972 in Hollywood, he had a twin brother Kevin, who played minor league baseball. He married Melanie Varela in 1997 and had one son, Christopher, 6.