Lear jet crash in Florida

[stm1sydney]

Lear jet crashes into the ground near Palm Beach, Florida. Hit the ground like a missile. Terrible.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/2m-learjet-60-crashes-near-palm-beach-nine-people-on-board-mobile-home-demolished-in-fireball/news-story/2ca240bacb746105ccf7adf5d183a864

 

[DC3]

Paywalled?

 

[SYD]

Paywalled?

It’s on the ABC news website. Quite horrific video.

The audio (on the Oz) is chilling…

 

[OATEK]

Coming towards the end of the flight it is hard to understand how the aircraft got out of control in the way it did.

 

[Saab34]

Iced up Stab? They did say they had been managing the ice but who knows what else was iced up.

Overspeed comment from pilot likely contributed to some structural issues on the way down. Be interesting to see if any parts ended up in other suburbs.

 

[offshore171]

Coming towards the end of the flight it is hard to understand how the aircraft got out of control in the way it did.

Learjet pilots on twitter are saying it's likely to be an issue with the T-tail.

It's fairly small and the hinge is susceptible to icing (which was reported). Combine this with heavy turbulence, and rapid pitch oscillations, and the theory is that the horizontal tail surfaces got ripped clean off.

The freeze frames seem to support the loss of the horizontal tail surfaces

 

[markis10]

Coming towards the end of the flight it is hard to understand how the aircraft got out of control in the way it did.

Weather wasn’t great at the time, could have been caught in a downdraft with the plane subsequently partly breaking up

SPECI KDJT 011859Z 13010G20KT 100V170 2SM +TSRA BR SCT022 OVC028CB 25/23 A3006 RMK AO2 OCNL LTGICCG OHD TS OHD MOV NW P0011 T02500233

 

[Aussie_flyer]

That audio is so awful. Kind of wish I didn't listen to it.

 

[nancypants]

Yeah don’t listen to the audio eh

 

[markis10]

Interesting weather breakdown

Matthew Cappucci

We're saddened to hear about the tragedy involving a Learjet 60 near West Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday evening, November 1. Weather was likely a contributing factor; while the NTSB has a long...

www.facebook.com

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Interesting weather breakdown
View attachment 529950

Matthew Cappucci

We're saddened to hear about the tragedy involving a Learjet 60 near West Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday evening, November 1. Weather was likely a contributing factor; while the NTSB has a long...

www.facebook.com

Yeh the FR24 post shows they hit a cell just before the crash. Tried to climb above it . Had they kept going in the current course before taking the right turn it seems they would have avoided it ?

 

[Quickstatus]

The freeze frames seem to support the loss of the horizontal tail surfaces

Impossible to tell from that.
Light colour stabiliser vs light colour background and aircraft travelling like a missile.

There was another post that suggested left wing separated as well
But as the pilots could not control the pitch axis, it seems reasonable that the horizontal stabilisers separated.

Lots of conjecture at the moment

 

[Saab34]

Interesting weather breakdown

One for the pilots, what info do you get for these sort of events on radar? I’m not blaming anyone just curious to what sort of heads up you get, it’s a nasty image. How good are your radars with giving you this info?

 

[Quickstatus]

How good are your radars with giving you this info?

Would the convective cell be visible from below assuming it is groving very fast?

 

[markis10]

One for the pilots, what info do you get for these sort of events on radar? I’m not blaming anyone just curious to what sort of heads up you get, it’s a nasty image. How good are your radars with giving you this info?

Lear 60’s often have a Collins deck with the Collins WXR-840 Weather Radar giving realtime info, however the buildup rate of that CB probably caught them out. They may have thought they could outclimb the weather given they had 300nm to run, but possible delays in clearances etc may not of helped.

I didn’t listen to the tape, I feel for the ATC’s involved, they must have felt somewhat helpless in that last 30 seconds. I have had a couple of occurrences where I was the last person that a pilot spoke to prior to passing, not good.

 

[offshore171]

That audio is so awful. Kind of wish I didn't listen to it.

Yes, agree it was very grim indeed. I'm amazed they were still transmitting, given the circumstances.

I am interested in these incidents from an engineering and forensic perspective, but there's often a very grim and sad human tragedy there as well.