The National Transportation Safety Board said it recovered parts of the Learjet plane that dove toward the ground Nov. 1 and crash in a South Florida community, killing all nine people onboard.
Investigators
located pieces from both the plane's wings and engines, as well as the flight deck, vertical stabilizer, horizontal stabilizer, left elevator, aileron sections and flap track assemblies, the agency said Nov. 8. They sent the pieces to agency laboratories for closer inspection.
The recovered pieces could provide clues into what went wrong.
The business jet, traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, sped to the ground at more than 300 mph before exploding in a fireball near a mobile home neighborhood in Palm Beach County. Heavy rain and thunderstorms were moving through the area at the time.
In a haunting audio recording between the cockpit and air traffic controllers, the flight crew describes rapidly hurtling toward the ground in an out-of-control plane.
Everyone onboard, a pilot, co-pilot and seven passengers, including a family of four with two children, perished.
Debris dotted the area around the impact crater, forcing at least 600 people living nearby to evacuate.
Determining what caused the crash is likely to take time. The NTSB has warned the investigation will be complicated and lengthy, due in part to the near-total destruction of the plane.
Investigators described the recovery of the aircraft’s left elevator as a “very significant bit of evidence,” during a Nov. 3 news conference. The piece, they said, indicated the plane was breaking up before it slammed into the ground.
They are urging members of the community who have found debris to send photos to the NTSB.
“Please do not keep it or attempt to move, alter or dispose of it," the agency said Nov. 8. “Recovering all available wreckage is critical to the investigation and helping to determine the cause of the crash.”
Contributing: Christopher Cann
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Investigators find wings, engine of downed Learjet plane
