This mess of twisted metal, rubble piles, gutted walls and a huge hole looking out on the Upper East Side are all that remain of the lofty condo ripped open by Yankee Cory Lidle’s small plane last week.
What wasn’t demolished by the initial crash and the subsequent inferno is scattered about in small pieces around the 40th and 41st floors of the Belaire high-rise on East 72nd Street that swallowed the Cirrus SR20 Wednesday. The accident killed Lidle and flight instructor Tyler Stanger.
These exclusive photos show the charred remains of Apartment 41FG. Records show the unit belongs to Kathleen Carrona, who was seriously injured during the 1997 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and was awarded an undisclosed settlement for her nearly $400 million lawsuit. She was not home when the plane hit.
The walls that weren’t ripped apart are blackened – as is a bookshelf on one wall. A red paisley couch in the middle of the room was ruined and covered in glass.
Amid the conflagration, a hero emerged from the chaos.
“I was working and I heard the biggest explosion I ever heard,” said building super Imer Brovina, who was doing plumbing work in apartment 41B, when the plane hit the building’s north face nearby.
“It just shook the whole building.
It was a tremendous noise.
Really, the building shook. I was just 10 feet away.
“There was smoke everywhere.
It was black. I didn’t know what to do.” The Belaire’s super said he immediately pulled the stairwell fire alarm and dialed 911.
“I said, ‘Tell the police and the fire department and everyone, really, just to come immediately.’ ” He was ready to make his own escape from the burning building when he heard screaming from a floor below.
“I went down one flight of stairs and I found her, Mrs.
[Ilane] Benhuri,” Brovina told The Post yesterday. “She was just shaking and yelling, yelling like crazy. She was completely frozen.
“I said to her, ‘Come on, we have to go. We have to get out of here right now.’ She was still frozen, so I just took her. I got my other friend and we carried her. We carried here down all the flights of stairs to the lobby.” After helping Benhuri out of the building, Brovina heard more screaming from one of the lower floors, and went back in to find a woman wrapped in a towel and holding a baby.
“We got her, we got the baby, and we walked everyone down,” he said. “Other people too. Everyone was screaming. It was hard to walk down the stairs.” “Oh, my God, I was scared to death. It almost hit me. The plane almost hit me. I was just a few feet away.
“I was so scared.” Benhuri remains at New YorkPresbyterian Hospital with burns over 15 percent of her body, including her back and arms.
“We haven’t even seen her,” said her cousin, Steven Nerayoff.
Meanwhile, Lidle’s wife Melanie continues to mourn in her Glendora, Calif., home with their 6-year-old son Christopher.
She has received several messages of support from the Yankees, said her mother, Mary Varela.
“She’s not up to saying anything right now,” Varela said.
“She’s in good hands. [Cory’s twin brother] Kevin is looking after her.” Varela said her daughter has been sedated.
Crash investigators are finished with their work at the scene, and it will be months before they make any conclusions as to the cause of the single-engine plane disaster, said National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway.
Additional reporting by Caroline Virr in Glendora, Calif.