Pieces of a Learjet 60’s left tail elevator were found as far as 3.8 miles from the Palm Beach County crash site, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator said Tuesday. The locations of the fragments suggest the aircraft may have started breaking apart before it hit the ground, but investigators have not determined what caused the crash.
NTSB member Tom Chapman said the elevator, which helps control an aircraft’s pitch, had separated into three parts. He described its loss as important evidence for investigators, while cautioning that even an attached elevator might not have been effective at the speeds involved. The Associated Press also reported that fragments were recovered between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the impact site.
The Learjet crashed on November 1 during a flight from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas. All nine people aboard died. The NTSB investigation page lists the investigation as ongoing and its information as preliminary.
Co-pilot reported ice and severe turbulence
Minutes before the crash, co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras told air traffic controllers that ice was building up on the plane and that severe turbulence had moved it up and down by more than 700 feet. She then declared a mayday, according to the air traffic control recordings described in the source report.
Those reports are among the circumstances investigators are examining; they do not establish that icing or turbulence caused the crash. Chapman had previously said that parts of the jet appeared to have come off before impact. The newly reported elevator fragments provide investigators with additional physical evidence as they work to establish the sequence of events.