Learjet investigators find key debris separated miles from Florida crash site
The tail section of Learjet 60 N722BD, whose co-pilot was heard screaming the jet was descending at 20,000 feet per minute in an overspeed condition before impact.Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras (left), the co-pilot, pictured with pilot Jeff Gregory, whose final recorded words were the Lord's Prayer as the Learjet plunged towards the ground.Dashcam footage of the Learjet 60's impact near West Palm Beach, as Transport Secretary Sean Duffy called the crash "a horrific tragedy.Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, and their children Emma and Charlie, who were among the nine killed; the crew had reported light icing and requested clearance to climb to 37,000 feet before issuing a mayday call less than 30 seconds later.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board recovered three sections of the Learjet 60's left elevator — the tail component controlling nose pitch — lying between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the crater left by Sunday's crash in Greenacres, near West Palm Beach. NTSB member Tom Chapman confirmed the jet had been descending at up to 32,000 feet per minute before it struck a residential street and erupted in a fireball, killing all nine people on board, among them pilot Jeff Gregory, 55, and 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Filgueiras.
Chapman said that even had the elevator remained in place, it almost certainly could not have saved the aircraft at such speeds.
Debris punched through the roof and into the kitchen ceiling of Ana Escobar's home less than a mile away; the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office seized the material as evidence.
Investigators have yet to locate the cockpit voice recorder and expect the full inquiry to last more than a year.
