PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A private jet that crashed in Maine in January, killing all six people aboard, spent more than the standard amount of time on a runway after de-icing before takeoff, according to a preliminary report issued Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The plane should have waited no more than nine minutes from the start of when the de-icing treatment began before taking off, according to Federal Aviation Administration
guidelines. But the NTSB report said 17 minutes passed before takeoff.
The pilot commented that it was “standard” to have 14 to 18 minutes and that if the wait was more than 30 minutes, they would return to the ramp to deice again, and the copilot concurred, the report states.
The report does not point to a probable cause, which is expected in a final report. The final NTSB report on the investigation likely won’t be published for more than a year.
A spokesperson for NTSB declined to comment further on the report.
“There were multiple airport CCTV cameras that captured the airplane during the takeoff,” the report states. “Several of these cameras showed the airplane impact the ground followed by multiple explosions as the impact sequence progressed.”
The plane landed upside down on the runway and burst into flames. The airport remained closed for several days afterward.
The luxury jet that was owned by a Texas law firm had stopped in Bangor to refuel en route to Paris amid light snow, mild winds and near-zero temperatures as a massive storm began to reach Bangor. Another plane had just aborted takeoff, radioing to the tower that they chose not to fly because visibility wasn’t great and they would need another application of de-icing fluid.
The snow would eventually accumulate to about 9.5 inches (24 cm), but it was only beginning at the time of the crash. Investigators, who were initially hampered by the extreme weather conditions, recovered the cockpit voice and data recorders for analysis.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 had gone through a standard deicing process before proceeding to the runway, the airport director has said. If the calculated holdover time on a deicing treatment expires, a pilot is expected to go back for another treatment.
The four passengers and two pilots had stopped to refuel in Bangor as they traveled from Houston to France on Jan. 25. The passengers included Houston lawyer Tara Arnold, 46, and three people who worked for her luxury travel company.
The other victims were event planner Shawna Collins, 53, of Houston; chef Nick Mastrascusa, 43, and sommelier Shelby Kuyawa, 34, both of Hawaii; and pilots Jacob Hosmer, 47, of Pearland, Texas, and Jorden Reidel, 33, of Texas.
The international airport in Bangor, about 235 miles (378 kilometers) north of Boston and 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of Portland, is one of the closest in the U.S. to Europe and is often used to refuel private jets flying overseas. The Bombardier was headed for the Champagne region of France when it crashed.
