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Victim's wives learn news together

BY HERBERT LOWE | Newsday Staff Writer

10:22 PM EDT, October 12, 2006

Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger said what would be their final goodbyes to their wives at Kennedy Airport before the women boarded a commercial flight to Los Angeles.

Just a few hours later, Melanie Lidle's sister was among those waiting at Los Angeles International Airport to tell her and Stephanie Stanger that their husbands had died in a plane crash in Manhattan, according to people familiar with the families.

The Lidles' son, Christopher, 6, was with his mother. It was not clear whether Stephanie Stanger, who is pregnant, was traveling with her infant daughter. Thursday, a day after the crash, Brandie Peters, sister of Melanie Lidle, spoke to reporters outside the Lidles' home in Glendora, Calif.

"She's doing better," Peters said of Melanie, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. "I don't know how to describe it. She's up and about. She's just grateful for everybody."

Peters said that Christopher Lidle was playing with his cousins and seemed happy. She also said Melanie Lidle was touched by the comments from others.

"There's been nothing but kind words that she's seen," Peters said.

The Lidle and Stanger families had become very close since meeting a year ago, so much so that they had left for New York from California earlier this week on a brief vacation.

Jim Bastion, who was Cory Lidle's high school baseball coach and remained a close friend and golfing buddy of his former star pitcher, said of his death, "Anytime somebody leaves a young wife and a little boy, it's really sad," the Valley Tribune reported.

Bastion, who now is retired, told the newspaper that Cory and Melanie Lidle met at South Hills High School in West Covina, Calif. The Lidles would have celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary on Jan. 7, according to the Yankees' media guide.

Stanger grew up in the San Gabriel Valley city of Walnut, where his parents, Thayne and Victoria Stanger, still live. His brother, Camren, lives in Utah.

A woman who answered the phone Thursday at the parents' home said, "I don't have the ability to talk right now and would appreciate it if you didn't call for a while." She declined to identify herself.

Stanger operated a private flight instruction school at Brackett Airport in La Verne, Calif., where breakfast customers and those who operated the airport's restaurant, Norm's Hangar, were mourning his loss.

Stanger had breakfast at the airport with two children and his wife on Oct. 6, cook David Conriquez said.

"When I saw that Cory was killed, I just knew it was Tyler with him, so I waited all night to learn the second person's name," Conriquez said. "We've lost two great souls, who will be missed greatly here at Brackett. It's just heartbreaking, after seeing Tyler here, eating breakfast as a family for one of the last times. We're all a family here, and it was so satisfying to meet Cory, too. I feel the loss, and I can only imagine how that loss feels to his family."

Staff writer Deborah S. Morris contributed to this story, which was supplemented with reports from The Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press.