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Man shares pictures of 'crashed Learjet tailfin' after running over debris in his work car park
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A man who allegedly ran over some of the debris of a Learjet 60 that crashed in Florida has shared footage of the tailfin found around a mile away.
As previously reported, nine people were killed when a Learjet 60 tragically crashed close to a neighborhood of mobile homes in Florida.
They were named as pilot Jeff Gregory, 55, co-pilot Nathalia Filgueiras, 20, and passengers Adam Robinson, 44, who was a multimillionaire tech exec, his wife Helen Sharp, their two young children - Emma, four, and Charlie, two - and their nanny, Anita Maria Apellido, as well as their friends, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
Footage of the crash was caught on dashcam video by passing motorists and led to debate over whether the tail fin of the aircraft had broken off ahead of it crashing into the ground.
A TikTok user, going by MoversToTrust, has shared a video of what appears to be part of the aircraft's tailfin, found around a mile from the crash site.
He explained: "To all those people that thought that there was some kind of missile that crashed in West Palm Beach, I pulled in to work this morning and this is a tail fin.
"And if you actually see the videos, you see it going into a spiral, and without the tail fin that's exactly what happens."
He shared several other photos of the tail fin, including ones with hand-written serial numbers on the part.
He revealed that he'd run over some of the debris while driving into the parking lot, which led to the discovery.
After initially dismissing it as "just a piece of metal", he added: "I picked it up and put it on the grass and I took a double look at it... I realized it was part of the plane part, so then I called non-emergency sheriffs."
According to NTSB officials, safety investigators have recovered most of the left elevator of the plane in the days following the tragedy.
NTSB Board Member Thomas Chapman said on November 3 that it indicates that parts of the aircraft separated before it hit the ground.
Chapman told reporters gathered at the Palm Beach County Emergency Operations Center: "[On Nov. 2], the majority of the aircraft's left elevator was located in three pieces within a range of about 1.3 to 3.8 mi. from the accident site.
"It tells us that at least some components, important pieces of the aircraft, separated before the impact.
"What that means exactly in terms of what caused the aircraft to lose control and whether the loss of this piece was a result of the forces on the aircraft, we don't know yet."
The elevator is the movable part mounted to the trailing edge of the horizontal stabilizer at the tail of the aircraft, used to control pitch.
The Learjet 60 was 22 years old and was operated by Aurora Aviation, under the name of Upper Jets.
It took off from Austin Bergstrom International Airport, Texas, heading to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas.
The aircraft was flying at around 35,000ft before it crashed, killing all nine people on board.
The NTSB is investigating the cause of the crash, with weather conditions, turbulence, and potential structure failures among the factors it is looking at as potential causes of the fatal incident.
Chapman added that investigators will begin excavating the crater left by the plane in the sidewalk, after crews began to remove an unstable utility pole that had been affected by the crash, as well as draining water from the crater.
He added: "We expect to find critical airplane components within the crater."