Mr.Bottomtooth
11-12-2006, 11:26 AM
Crash Survivor Likely Suing Lidle's Estate
Woman Was Home When Plane Struck Building
By VERENA DOBNIK
AP Sports
NEW YORK (Nov. 11) - Ilana Benhuri was baking an apple pie for her 12-year-old son's school and doing paperwork in her apartment when her housekeeper noticed the small plane outside the window.
"At first, I thought I was dead," Benhuri, 50, said Friday as she left New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center a month after arriving with severe burns. "I was screaming. I could not stop screaming. I did not know what it was."
Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger were killed when the plane slammed nose-first into Benhuri's 30th floor apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side on Oct. 11.
Benhuri was the only one of 23 people injured in the crash to be hospitalized. The others, including 14 firefighters, were treated and released.
Benhuri suffered burns below her waist, but she and housekeeper Eveline Reategue made it down the building's stairs to safety. Reategue was uninjured. During her month in the hospital, Benhuri underwent surgery and multiple skin grafts.
"She's still in pain," said her attorney, Bob Sullivan, adding that a lawsuit was likely against Lidle's estate.
Benhuri's family is living elsewhere in Manhattan while their apartment is being restored, but she said she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to move back.
Authorities have not said which man was at the controls of the Cirrus SR20. Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board have said the inability of the plane's pilot to turn sharply in a light wind was responsible for the crash.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2006-11-11 10:20:24
http://sports.aol.com/mlb/story/_a/crash-survivor-likely-suing-lidles/20061111102009990001
Woman Was Home When Plane Struck Building
By VERENA DOBNIK
AP Sports
NEW YORK (Nov. 11) - Ilana Benhuri was baking an apple pie for her 12-year-old son's school and doing paperwork in her apartment when her housekeeper noticed the small plane outside the window.
"At first, I thought I was dead," Benhuri, 50, said Friday as she left New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center a month after arriving with severe burns. "I was screaming. I could not stop screaming. I did not know what it was."
Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger were killed when the plane slammed nose-first into Benhuri's 30th floor apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side on Oct. 11.
Benhuri was the only one of 23 people injured in the crash to be hospitalized. The others, including 14 firefighters, were treated and released.
Benhuri suffered burns below her waist, but she and housekeeper Eveline Reategue made it down the building's stairs to safety. Reategue was uninjured. During her month in the hospital, Benhuri underwent surgery and multiple skin grafts.
"She's still in pain," said her attorney, Bob Sullivan, adding that a lawsuit was likely against Lidle's estate.
Benhuri's family is living elsewhere in Manhattan while their apartment is being restored, but she said she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to move back.
Authorities have not said which man was at the controls of the Cirrus SR20. Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board have said the inability of the plane's pilot to turn sharply in a light wind was responsible for the crash.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2006-11-11 10:20:24
http://sports.aol.com/mlb/story/_a/crash-survivor-likely-suing-lidles/20061111102009990001