Pilot declared emergency before business jet crash in Florida that killed nine people

Nine people died when a private jet crashed in Lake Worth Beach, Florida, and there were no survivors. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is expected to hold a press briefing on the crash, according to the Fox Business broadcast.

The audio released shows the pilot's last moments before the crash. In the recording, he says: "Mayday, we're descending" (Mayday, we are descending) and declares an emergency. The broadcast classified the audio as disturbing.

The ice hypothesis

A guest on the program, Lieutenant Colonel Darin Gaub, former US Army Black Hawk battalion commander and military strategist, assessed that weather conditions may have contributed to the accident. According to him, there was extreme water cooling (super cooling) at altitude, with clouds and turbulence, conditions conducive to the formation of ice on the aircraft.

In Gaub's assessment, if the anti-icing system is overloaded, ice begins to accumulate. With the accumulated ice, he said, the plane starts to behave like "a brick", and it becomes almost impossible to control the aircraft and maintain altitude. He said that in these cases it is often too late, and that the hypothesis would help explain the loss of control and spiraling.

Presenter Cheryl noted that planes don't usually just fall out of the sky. The aircraft was a Learjet 60, 22 years old. When asked whether the age or type of device would have an influence, Gaub replied that not necessarily and highlighted that the information is still very preliminary, with the possibility of unexpected facts emerging.

Smaller aircraft and traffic control

Gaub compared the jet to larger aircraft, which undergo de-icing procedures before takeoff and have protection around the engine nacelles. According to him, the Learjet would have fewer protection resources against the phenomenon and the flight location was prone to ice formation. He said he was not surprised by the possibility of ice, especially on smaller aircraft.

The analyst cited reports that air traffic control had not moved the aircraft to a better altitude, which would have avoided passing through storm cells. Pressed by Cheryl about a possible control failure, Gaub agreed that the event is extraordinarily rare and stressed that it depends on the confirmation of the information. If the reports are true, he said, control may not have authorized the altitude change requested by the pilots to escape the bad weather pattern, which would have explanatory power over what happened.

Gaub defended that the investigation should continue before reaching definitive conclusions. The causes will only be established by the NTSB, and the article does not, so far, provide additional numbers or data about the accident.

Automatically translated from Portuguese.