Investigators said Monday they had recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a business jet that fell from the sky amid bad weather in Florida last week, killing all nine people on board.
The recorder was found at the site where the Bahamas-bound Learjet crashed to the ground and erupted in a ball of fire on Nov. 1, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement posted on social media.
If the device data can be recovered, this could provide crucial details about what the pilots said to each other when they encountered turbulence, ice formed on the wings and they lost control of the plane.
It was not immediately clear whether the recorder was damaged or whether it was working in the first place. The NTSB said the device was being evaluated at a laboratory in Washington.
Based on photos posted online by the agency showing the orange-painted metal shell of the recorder, it appeared to be in good condition, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told The Associated Press.
“It’s very plausible that information about the recorder survived,” Guzzetti said. “If they can recover it, and it is from the accident flight, that will be a big help to investigators.”
He noted that when the NTSB recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a medical transport plane, crashed in Philadelphia in January 2025, killing seven people, it turned out that the device had probably not been working for several years.
Witnesses filmed dramatic video as the business jet plunged nose-first into the ground, and air traffic control transmissions recorded the disturbing moments as the pilots became aware of their fate. But the cockpit voice recorder could shed light on other aspects of the crash, including why the Learjet appeared to bypass a large storm cell and head directly toward a smaller, rapidly developing cell.
Investigators said pieces of a key part of the tail called the elevator, which controls the plane’s pitch, were found more than a kilometer and a half away from the main crater, confirming that the plane had begun to break up before impact.
The co-pilot told air traffic controllers that the plane was being thrown up and down more than 700 feet (213 meters) and she asked them for a better route through the area.
Typically, it takes the NTSB 12 to 18 months to complete an accident investigation, but complex cases may take longer. The NTSB’s approximately 400 employees conduct more than 1,200 active investigations.
Investigators will review maintenance records and any history of problems with the plane. They will also question officials from Upper Jets, the company that operated the flight, as well as air traffic controllers and people working at the Austin, Texas, airport where the plane departed.
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