US3 min(s) read
Tragic simulation shows 'what happened inside cockpit' of Florida Learjet flight before crash killed nine people
A video reconstructing the final moments before a private jet plummeted to earth, killing at least nine people in Florida, shows what may have happened inside the cockpit.
At around 1PM on Sunday, November 2, a private jet reportedly worth $2 million nose-dived into the ground, exploding with a huge fireball and creating a massive crater, just nine miles from President Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort.
The nine victims have since been identified
A young family with two young children, their nanny, and two close friends were killed alongside the pilot and co-pilot.
The nine people were: Austin-based tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 44, his wife Helen Sharp, their four-year-old daughter Emma, and their two-year-old son Charlie, nanny Anita Maria Apellido Cetina, and friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, alongside 55-year-old captain Jeff Gregory and 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras.
A chilling animation posted by YouTube account TALEYE explained how the tragic incident occurred by demonstrating what is believed to have gone wrong in the cockpit and ultimately caused the Learjet 60 to crash into a mobile home community in Palm Beach County.
Dashcam video shows the aircraft plummeting from 35,000 ft to the ground in a staggering 76 seconds before combusting upon impact.
In this reconstruction, the flight is followed minute by minute using the air traffic control recording between the crew and Miami Air Control Center, flight tracking data, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)'s first statements.
The plane, which was traveling from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas before it smashed into the Greenacres community, "went down about 200 nm short of its destination."
The weather conditions were a major reason the plane went down
Investigators believe adverse weather conditions could have caused the crash, because according to the video: "15 minutes before the crash, a nearby NWS station reported thunderstorms in the vicinity, 3 mi visibility, gusts to 19 kt."
Moments later, at 12:47 PM, the jet flew into the core of a storm that had a height of 47,000 feet. Rather than flying over it, the aircraft went right through the eye of the storm, which caused it to climb 450 feet. Just 20 seconds later, it began the terrifying 35,000 feet plunge to its combustion.
A mere ten seconds after the descent began, a crew member made the petrifying Mayday call to the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center while the plane was falling at 10,000 feet per minute.
In the chilling call recording, the pilot said: “We’re descending 8,000 - mayday, mayday - we’re descending 10,000 feet per minute."
Seconds later, she then desperately added: “We are in an overspeed condition, descending 20,000 feet per minute."
Just 45 seconds later, the aircraft hit the ground and exploded in a ball of fire, killing all nine passengers and crew upon impact.
While the jet's tracking data tells us that those final 77 seconds were when things began to go majorly wrong, and the weather should be a major focus for investigators, the NTSB's preliminary report will take around 30 days; the final report can take a year or two.