NEW YORK, Oct 12: US transportation authorities are investigating Wednesday’s single-engine plane crash into a high-rise condominium here which claimed the lives of two people and injured 21 others.

New York Yankees baseball team’s relief pitcher Cory Lidle, the owner of the Cirrus SR20 plane with only 80 flying hours’ experience, and his instructor were killed in the crash.

The crash which took place before 3pm on Wednesday afternoon, for many New Yorkers, was a grim reminder of 9/11.

A pall of thick black smoke hung over the Manhattan skyline. Bits of the tail wing of the plane lay scattered on the pavement. Two floors of a tower block were engulfed in an intense blaze.

The location on the city’s upper east side is 8km from ‘ground zero’.

Crowds assembled as news spread that the small aircraft had ploughed into the 30th and 31st storeys of the 50-floor Belair building.

Manhattan’s wide avenues were clogged with emergency vehicles and helicopters hovered overhead as crews of firefighters prepared to enter the building.

And in the most eerie echo of five years ago, the cell phone networks jammed as people rushed to telephone their loved ones.

A news report said the northern end of the airspace over the East River was a treacherous, narrow corridor often filled with helicopters ferrying tourists, businesspeople and traffic reporters along the edge of Manhattan.

Small planes like Mr Lidle’s are allowed to fly through the area at low altitude, but several pilots said they did not dare because it could be crowded.

The spot where the plane struck the building is near the end of the ‘uncontrolled’ corridor at the edge of the airspace governed by La Guardia Airport.