Pebble Beach – Death in America (continued)

Heather Bratton, Audrey Lindvall, Cory Lidle . . .

A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe.

“The whole plane has a parachute on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent 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 whole plane goes down slowly.”

“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.”

He became queasy once, Stanger said, somewhere over New Mexico while returning from Texas. Otherwise, Lidle was a natural.

“It’s basically to bring things a little closer to reach,” he said. “Now I can go to Pebble Beach if I want, and instead of driving there for five hours, I can fly there in an hour and 45 minutes. I can go to Arizona to golf, or Vegas, wherever.”

NYTimes