A small plane carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor slammed into a 40-story apartment building on Manhattan's Posh Upper East Side on Oct.11, the famed baseball team said.

Lidle, 34, who owned the four-seat plane, died along with a flying instructor."This is a terrible and shocking tragedy that has stunned the entire Yankees organization," club owner George Steinbrenner said in a statement.

The crash occurred in overcast weather. Smoke and flames poured from the upper floors of the building and more than 100 firefighters were sent to the scene.

Born in Hollywood, California, Lidle appeared on Oct. 7 as a relief pitcher in the Yankees' final game of the season when they lost an American League playoff series to the Tigers in Detroit. His journeyman Major League career began with the New York Mets in 1997.

He was traded to the Yankees this summer from the Philadelphia Phillies. His nine-year career record was 82 wins and 72 losses.

The New York Times reported last month Lidle earned his pilot' slicense in the past year and bought the four-seat Cirrus SR 20 plane, with less than 400 hours of flight time, for 187,000 U.S. dollars.

The baseball world reacted with shock to news of Lidle's death. Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson, who worked with Lidle with the Oakland Athletics, said of his friend's death, "You feel like your soul has been totally bruised."

"The reaction is just total disbelief," he told reporters.

Fans in Oakland, where Lidle played for the Athletics in the 2001 and 2002 seasons, honored him with a moment of silence before the start of an American League Championship Series game.

The plane took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, just miles (km) from Manhattan, and circled the Statue of Liberty before flying north and eventually crashing, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters at a briefing.

Luis Gonzales, 23, who was working in the building, said: "I was looking out the window and I saw the plane coming so close to us and it swerved to try and avoid the building but it hit the building. I am still shaking."