My initial eye-rolling at the NYC plane crash was spurred by the realization that it was, indeed, an accident, and the fact that the plane just happened to pirouette into an apartment building on the Upper East Side would immediately make it the center of the news universe, whereas if the accident happened in, say, South Dakota or really anywhere that isn't New York, it goes from we-interrupt-Oprah-for-breaking-news news to just-before-the-waterskiing-squirrel news.
So the realization that New York Yankee Cory Fulton Lidle (relative of Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat) was aboard and died in the crash, well, yes, is tragic, but actually justifies the media play the story gets from here on out. It gives the story a few extra shades of strangeness, from the untimely-death-of-athlete angle to the they-should-be-in-the-postseason-now angle.
(For those of you who don't follow sports, the Yankees are a financial juggernaut of a team, boasts a $200 million roster in a sport with no rein over runaway spending, so this franchise can pretty much write a check for the postseason every year. And yet they got unceremonially and unexpectedly got dumped out of the playoff by the Detroit Tigers in a very embarrassing series last weekend. Nobody last week thought Lidle'd have time off for flying this week.)
None of which changes the base math of the event -- people dead, many injured (most firefighters), a nation collectively grasps the edge of its chair out of reflex. But Lidle's identity introduces so many different circumstances to the event that it...well, becomes more intriguing, more of a story than just an event. Which sounds (and is) unfortunate and callous, but that's how it unfolded.
