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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Remembering the Corridor: Mohammed Atta and I both made the world's greatest flight, through the heart of New York City. But I turned upriver.
Sep 11, 2003 | A businessman drops his newspaper. Beneath him and closing fast, the outstretched flame of the Statue of Liberty looks close enough to scorch the paint off the airplane. Across the aisle, a passenger watches breathlessly as the twin towers of Manhattan's World Trade Center loom ahead. She can make out the figures of people on its rooftop observation deck. She is looking up, not down, at them.
A cut from a screenplay? Maybe, but those were the opening lines from a short article I wrote in 1996. What I described was a unique and unforgettable procedure that certain small airliners -- turboprops like the 15 and 19-seaters I once piloted -- used to follow when heading out of the triple-cluster airspace surrounding New York City. It was, probably, the single greatest flying experience of my life -- a ride along the VFR (Visual Flight Rules) "corridor" contouring the western edge of Manhattan along the Hudson River.
The corridor is a low-altitude trough of unrestricted airspace through which small aircraft can transit the metro area. Although thousands of private pilots have flown it in light planes, most commercial pilots aren't aware that we could do it too, albeit slightly higher and under the watch of ATC. Those aboard were treated to one of the most spectacular views in all of aviation, a rooftop-level panorama of the avenues, bridges, and skyscrapers of New York. As a line captain based in the Northeast in the early 1990s, the opportunity to fly this route was an enduring highlight of my job.
The patterns at La Guardia and Kennedy airports didn't normally accommodate a corridor run, but the runway alignment at Newark made it an easy shot, so long as the weather was good and volume not too heavy. The run could be made either when arriving or departing; landing aircraft were sequenced southbound down the Hudson, with takeoffs sent northbound just beneath them. The view was equally magnificent in either direction. Altitudes were assigned by ATC and staggered to avoid conflict. Technically you weren't in the corridor proper, but just above it, which allowed you to work with ATC while staying clear of the Pipers and Cessnas. Larger planes and jets couldn't join the fun, as regulatory constraints keep them on the more standard instrument flight paths.
For arrivals, preparation began at least 30 miles away. Boston to Newark was a common trip at our airline, and somewhere around Westchester was a good place to get ready. Step 1 was a polite query to New York approach control. "Is Newark taking traffic down the river today?" Usually the answer was yes.
Descending slowly, the idea was to intercept the Hudson near the Tappan Zee Bridge. Proceeding south, approach would next give you clearance into the city's restricted airspace, the Class B, which on a map looks like an enormous, three-ringed wedding cake layered over the tops of Newark, La Guardia and Kennedy. In the distance you caught your first glimpse of the jagged Manhattan skyline, sitting out there, to borrow a Vonnegut line again, like a giant quartz porcupine.
Rather than crossing the river way up near the Tappan Zee, now and then you'd get clearance near the "Northport stacks," nickname for a power plant on the north shore of Long Island about 40 miles from Newark. There was a standard, unwritten procedure for a river run from here. Regulars knew it by heart, as did ATC, who would rattle it off in staccato: "Cleared in New York Class B south stanchion Throgs Neck tower cab Central Park Hudson."
A first-time crew would stare dazed at its microphone if it hadn't encountered this onslaught before, but we understood it fully: From Northport we'd make a beeline for the south stanchion of the Throgs Neck Bridge, the first suspension bridge you come to as you near the city (second is the Whitestone). Then we'd head directly to La Guardia, passing exactly -- and ATC demanded exactly -- above the control tower at 2,000 feet. Next you crossed the north end of Central Park, then banked left to pick up the river. All around, LaGuardia and Kennedy traffic filled the sky. With TCAS (Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System) on board you could probably light the cockpit by the glow of its targets. One morning, an Air France Concorde whizzed past our left wing, a thousand feet above, inciting applause from the cabin.
Either over the park or across the GW, depending which of the above was flown, you'd now be dropped to 1,500 feet, and that's when it got sensational, the tops of the skyscrapers nearly at wingtip level. Skimming a forest of glass and concrete we'd race southward down the Hudson, passengers pointing frantically, faces to the windows, trying to identify Gotham's landmarks -- the blue bleachers of Yankee Stadium, the campus at Columbia, the Art Deco spires of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings. Manhattan from the air is like nowhere else on earth, the cityscape split into hundreds of sheer vertical canyons, alive with rivers of cars and yellow taxis.
You'd stay at 1,500 until reaching the Statue of Liberty, which stands in the mouth of the river just beyond the tip of Manhattan. Then you begin a descending right turn for the runway at Newark. Early mornings were the prettiest, and a pilot or two was known to click a few pictures. Nighttime too was dramatic, and once during a rooftop light show at the World Trade Center we found ourselves illuminated in somebody's carefully aimed beam of neon green, like a bomber in the Blitz caught in a London spotlight.
Frequency changes and traffic calls came quickly. In addition to several approach controllers, you'd be chatting with both La Guardia and Newark control towers. Maximum speed in a Class B is 250 knots, but it was best to keep it slower. My usual target speed was 200 knots, with flaps set and checklists completed early. I'd throw all the lights on back at the Tappan Zee or Northport.
On the ground at Newark, the people thanked you for the thrill and deplaned. A new batch of faces came aboard, and then it was time to do the whole thing over again, this time in reverse.
