NTSB Finds Jet Debris Miles From Fatal Palm Beach County Learjet Crash Site
Investigators recover aircraft parts 4 miles from a Palm Beach County crash site, suggesting the Learjet broke up before impact in a fatal tragedy.
POLICY WIRE — Palm Beach County, Florida — Investigators discovered wreckage from a jet that crashed on Sunday, claiming nine lives, located nearly four miles away from the primary point of impact.
Tom Chapman of the National Transportation Safety Board explained during a Tuesday briefing that the presence of a tail component so far from the impact crater suggests the aircraft disintegrated mid-air before hitting the ground.
According to Chapman, various pieces of the aircraft were identified up to 3.8 miles away from the crash site. He noted specifically that the tail’s elevator was found fractured into three distinct sections, a failure that would have prevented the pilots from recovering the Learjet 60 from its terminal dive.
“The function of the elevator is to control the pitch up and down,” Chapman stated. He added that while he is uncertain if the part would have functioned at such speeds even if it remained attached, its loss serves as critical evidence for the direction of the ongoing investigation.
On Monday, Chapman confirmed that the airframe likely began losing components prior to striking the earth. Just before the accident, 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras alerted air traffic controllers that ice was building up on the wings and extreme turbulence caused the plane to fluctuate by over 700 feet before she issued a mayday call.
Audio recordings capture Filgueiras reporting a rapid descent of the jet. The communications became increasingly dire before the flight traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, struck the ground and exploded in a fireball.
The nine victims killed in the disaster include Austin couple Adam Robinson and Helen Sharp, along with their children Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2. Other fatalities identified are Rachael Reed, Charmi Fehr, and Anita Maria Cetina.
The second pilot was identified as 55-year-old Jeff Gregory. During the final moments of the descent, a male voice was heard reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the background; friends believe the voice was Gregory given his known deep faith.
Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)
