Learjet Crew Called Mayday 30 Seconds After Icing Report

The Learjet 60 that crashed into a Palm Beach County neighborhood on Sunday, killing all nine people aboard, went from reporting light icing at 35,000 feet to a mayday call in less than 30 seconds, NTSB member Tom Chapman said Monday.

The aircraft, owned by Aurora Aviation, doing business as Upper Jet, departed Austin, Texas, at 10:40 a.m. Sunday bound for Eleuthera in the Bahamas. The crew stayed in contact with air traffic controllers along the route, Chapman told reporters at a briefing in Palm Beach County.

At 12:47 p.m., over Palm Beach County, the pilots reported light ice and "moderate" turbulence. Outside air temperature was minus 53 degrees. Very soon after, the crew radioed that they were "picking up precipitation" and asked the Federal Aviation Administration for clearance to climb to 37,000 feet.

Less than 30 seconds later came the mayday.

What did the co-pilot say?

At 12:48 p.m., the co-pilot transmitted: "We are in an overspeed condition. Descending." The rest of the message was unintelligible, Chapman said. The aircraft hit the ground shortly before 1 p.m.

No one on the ground was killed or injured, but dozens of residents had to leave their homes because of the debris field and the investigation.

Who was on board?

The passengers were Texas tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson; his wife, Helen Sharp; their children Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; friends Rachel Reed and Charmi Fehr; and the children's nanny, Anita Maria Cetina. The two pilots also died.

The New York Post identified the captain as Jeff Gregory, 55. His co-pilot was Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, of Boca Raton, identified by her family.

The families issued a joint statement on social media late Monday asking "for privacy as we grieve."

"Adam and Helen were devoted parents, and Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, were the light of their lives," the statement said. "Their warmth, generosity and gift for making people feel welcome touched so many lives."

Of the nanny, the families wrote: "Anita Maria cared for Emma and Charlie with tenderness and devotion, and she was truly part of the family." Of the friends: "Charmi and Rachel were full of joy and adventure. They loved their people fiercely, fully and without hesitation."

Chapman opened his briefing with condolences. "We are truly sorry for your loss," he said.

What happens next in the investigation?

About 20 NTSB investigators reached Palm Beach County Sunday night, with more, including Chapman, arriving Monday. Timothy Monville, the investigator in charge, said the inquiry will include:

• recovering pieces of the aircraft that fell off before impact
• examining the impact crater
• interviewing witnesses

Monville cautioned that the probable cause will not be released while investigators remain on the ground.

Was weather a factor?

The jet went down amid severe thunderstorms that raged across South Florida from Sunday morning into the afternoon. Flight experts say weather was likely a factor and that the captain should have delayed the departure after reviewing the forecast.

"I've been doing this for 40 years. I would not have been flying in South Florida yesterday," Matthew "Whiz" Buckley, 57, told the Miami Herald. Buckley flew as a Navy F-18 Hornet aviator and then commercially for FedEx and American Airlines.

"I guarantee you that taking off out of Austin yesterday, they saw the weather in Florida," Buckley said. "If there's any doubt, there's no doubt."

What about the neighborhood?

The aircraft crashed onto a road in a residential area near Greenacres, a densely populated working-class part of the county a few miles from President Donald J. Trump International Airport. On Monday afternoon, deputies and firefighters blocked off large stretches of Military Trail between Cresthaven Boulevard and 10th Avenue, cutting some residents off from their homes and cars.

One resident, who lives in a trailer about a block from the site, described the impact. "It was like a bomb had dropped," said Arturo, who did not give a last name. "If I hadn't seen the plane, I would have told you it was a bomb."

Hundreds of residents were evacuated to a nearby shelter after the crash, Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel G. Flores said at a news briefing Monday. Businesses near the strip mall on the crash road are closed until further notice, and officials said they may stay shut for "quite some time" as they seek additional funding from the governor.

"We are in a state of emergency from a county perspective," County Administrator Joseph Abruzzo said.

He explained that evacuations continue mainly to preserve evidence. "There's evidence everywhere. The evidence has to be collected, that's paramount in this investigation," Abruzzo said, adding: "I don't believe we feel that anything is going to explode at this point."

The NTSB's on-scene work — recovering separated wreckage, documenting the crater and gathering witness accounts — will shape the first factual findings on how an icing encounter at cruise altitude became an unrecoverable overspeed descent inside roughly one minute.