October 16, 200620 yr Turning Lidle on to flying devastates pal BY JONATHAN LEMIRE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Lidle pal Tom Wilson (above) turned the Yanks' pitcher (below) on to flying. Cory Lidle's ill-fated love of flying blossomed two years ago after a conversation with a former teammate - who is now haunted by the Yankees pitcher's plane crash. "He was hooked instantly; he couldn't get enough of it," said Tom Wilson, 35, who introduced Lidle to a pilot friend during a golf tournament in Arizona. "It's something he wanted to do, and more power to him, I said." "Now, I just don't know ...," Wilson told the Daily News, his voice turning into a whisper. "It's not like I'm blaming myself, but I feel awful," said Wilson, who spent the 2006 season with the Florida Marlins' top minor league club. "I'm torn up inside." Lidle, 34, had logged about 88 hours of flight time before the plane he and instructor Tyler Stanger, 26, were piloting last Wednesday slammed into a Manhattan high-rise on E. 72nd St. Federal investigators probing why the men flew off-course over the East River have taken the plane's debris to Washington where it will be examined. Lidle's and Stanger's families were in the Los Angeles area yesterday awaiting the return of the bodies from New York. The Yankees pitcher's agent, Jordan Feagan, said Lidle's memorial service and burial will take place 9 a.m. Tuesday at Forest Lawn cemetery in Covina Hills. Lidle's loved ones asked that donations be sent to Stanger's pregnant widow and 10-month-old daughter, who live in Walnut, Calif. At Lidle's home in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, his wife Melanie remained in seclusion, surrounded by relatives and her 6-year-old son, Christopher. "Melanie is not doing well," said her mother, Mary Varela. Asked about Melanie later in the day, Feagan said, "She's a wonderful woman. She deserves all the comfort she can get." The plane crash seriously injured only one person in the apartment tower, Ilane Benhuri, 50, who remained hospitalized yesterday in fair condition. After the fatal crash, Wilson said his cell phone rang while he was working at his wife's kitchen supplies store in Arizona. A friend on the line told him the bad news. "[My pal] said, 'I don't know how to tell you this, but TV is saying that Cory was on a plane that just flew into a building,'" said Wilson, his voice shaking. "I knew he was flying that day, but this caught me by surprise." "I went home and sat in front of my TV for five hours," he continued. "I keep waiting for Cory to come walking through the door and start joking again, but I know it's not going to happen." Wilson and Lidle met during spring training in 1998 and quickly bonded over a series of friendly card games. Three seasons later, as they played for the Oakland A's, Wilson, a catcher, and Lidle, a pitcher, grew closer. In subsequent years, the two became regulars at charity golf tournaments. "He didn't do anything halfway, he threw himself into what he loved. Flying became his real passion, it was something he had a real fondness for," Wilson said from his home in Lake Havasu, Ariz. "The whole thing is just a bad dream, man." Link Poor guy. But he hopefully doesn't blame himself.
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