The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday it recovered the cockpit voice recorder from a Learjet 60 that crashed near Greenacres, Florida, on Nov. 1, killing all nine people aboard. The agency said the recorder was found at the site of the initial impact and is being evaluated at its Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
The recovery adds a key piece of evidence to the investigation, but the source material does not report any findings from the recorder or identify a cause of the crash. The NTSB has said that weather will be a major focus of its inquiry.
Investigators have also recovered other aircraft components. On Friday, the board reported finding part of an engine after crews excavated the impact site. The excavation began Wednesday, following work by utility crews to drain water and remove other hazards, according to the NTSB. The agency said excavation at the site has since been completed.
Earlier in the investigation, crews recovered the left tail elevator, a component that controls an aircraft’s pitch. It was found in three pieces, with one piece located nearly four miles from the crash site. The NTSB has emphasized that fragments of wreckage can hold evidence useful to determining what happened.
The Learjet departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at about 10:37 a.m. on Nov. 1, bound for North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas. It crashed in Palm Beach County shortly before 1 p.m. All nine people aboard died.
The victims included Austin technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45; his wife, Helen Sharp, 40; their children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; the children’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina; and Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr. The supplied account does not provide ages for the other victims.
According to the account of communications cited in the source, an air traffic controller told the crew at about 41,000 feet that moderate precipitation was roughly five miles away. The controller said the crew could turn left or right and warned that the route toward Freeport in the Bahamas “looks pretty bad.” The crew was then directed toward a waypoint near Naples, Florida.
The flight deviated toward Palm Beach County, and the crew reported worsening weather. The crew told air traffic control there was icing and turbulence and asked whether a “better ride” was ahead. Heavy rain and thunderstorms were reported across South Florida around the time of the crash.
The recorder’s evaluation and the examination of recovered aircraft parts are ongoing. The information provided does not establish whether weather, mechanical issues, or another factor caused the aircraft to crash.
