Colorado Rockies Hitting Coach In Pilot Seat

The lapse in judgement was by the pilots, not the coach. They will, and should, be disciplined. They might lose their jobs.

The two players you mentioned were victims of their lack of training and the desire to demonstrate to others their prowess at the controls. Those circumstances and the outcome are common across the entire spectrum of pilots, and were unrelated to their profession as baseball players.
The Lidle and Munson accidents were related to their profession, but not due to that specific profession. Both were well-paid professional athletes, giving them the financial resources that allowed both to fast-track to operating and owning high-performance aircraft. Lidle went from PPL to owning an SR-20 in 4 months, with the accident occurring 4 months after that at 88 hours TT.

Munson went from PPL to typed in a CE501 in 13 months. Five weeks after starting his PPL training, he was already getting multi-engine training in a Beech Duke. He earned his ME rating in the BE60 5 days after earning his PPL (3.5 months after starting flight training). He purchased and flew a BE90 at 330 hours TT and acquired the CE501 5 months later at 480 hours TT. The accident occurred less than a month after that at 516 hours TT with 34 hours in type.

Having deep pockets allows pilots to get into trouble in ways not generally available to pilots of more modest financial resources.
 
An SR20 is really a basic training aircraft nowadays, and he had a CFI with him.
 
The Lidle and Munson accidents were related to their profession, but not due to that specific profession. Both were well-paid professional athletes, giving them the financial resources that allowed both to fast-track to operating and owning high-performance aircraft. Lidle went from PPL to owning an SR-20 in 4 months, with the accident occurring 4 months after that at 88 hours TT.

Munson went from PPL to typed in a CE501 in 13 months. Five weeks after starting his PPL training, he was already getting multi-engine training in a Beech Duke. He earned his ME rating in the BE60 5 days after earning his PPL (3.5 months after starting flight training). He purchased and flew a BE90 at 330 hours TT and acquired the CE501 5 months later at 480 hours TT. The accident occurred less than a month after that at 516 hours TT with 34 hours in type.

Having deep pockets allows pilots to get into trouble in ways not generally available to pilots of more modest financial resources.

Things like that are why I have actively avoided wealth.
 
An SR20 is really a basic training aircraft nowadays, and he had a CFI with him.
Agree but at the time of its introduction in the early 2000s, the SR20 considerably outperformed anything available in the trainer or entry-level market. My description as “high performance” was in that context and not by FAR definition. It is unclear whether Lidle’s CFI was providing instruction during the accident flight and had no record of flight time in Cirrus aircraft or familiarity with NYC airspace. Munson also had a CFI in the right seat (who survived the crash) but that CFI was not typed in the CE501.
 
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