'Like a missile coming down' - Nine killed in fiery Florida jet crash

airborne said:
If the elevators were initially frozen stuck would they potentially unfrozen during the final plunge but then the velocity immediately ripped them off?
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The problem with supercooled water in thunderstorms is that it freezes at -40C, but only melts at 0C. You have to wait a very long time for it to melt, time which they did not have in a near vertical dive.
 
Though, this is only been pieced together using the planes tail number and photos of her regularly flying that tail number or being a passenger in it.
But I mean... It's pretty good evidence, unless there is another young female pilot/co-pilot who regularly flew that tail number?
 
Gordon_R said:
Flaps are on the wings, and are used for landings. I thing you mean the elevators, which are on the tail and used for pitch control (climb/descent). There is good reason (posted by Pilot Denys) to believe those became stuck (frozen) and/or detached (overspeed), leading to complete loss of control. It is hard to think of any other cause at this stage.
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Not sure about the Learjet 60, but the earlier models had a tendency for flutter in the horizontal stabilizer (something of a T-tail thing). This may have become detached as a result of overspeed, although the initiation of the event may have been something different.
 
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Lupus said:
Unless something happened to the pilot.
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There is no evidence in this case that anything happened to incapacitate the pilot flying. If there was, the pilot on the radio would have said so immediately. In any case the basic rules of flying are Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Talking to ATC is a low priority in an emergency, indicating that there was nothing seriously wrong at first. Until suddenly there was, and by then it was too late for the co-pilot or ATC to do anything...

Edit: After Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, never ever fly into thunderstorms...
 
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Gordon_R said:
There is no evidence in this case that anything happened to incapacitate the pilot flying. If there was, the pilot on the radio would have said so immediately. In any case the basic rules of flying are Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Talking to ATC is a low priority in an emergency, indicating that there was nothing seriously wrong at first. Until suddenly there was, and by then it was too late for the co-pilot or ATC to do anything...

Edit: After Aviate, Navigate, Communicate, never ever fly into thunderstorms...
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I wasn't referring to this case, but in general
 
WanderingMind said:
That's crazy, 2 minutes before impact, they were high up, and everything was still okay.
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"They were basically at 35,000 feet in altitude and began to clime to 37,000 feet and went from turbulence due to ice formation and then a free fall of -32,000 feet per minute. The last recorded altitude was 8,750 feet. So around 16.4 seconds of complete abject terror and they hit the ground at 363 miles per hour. Instantaneous death. At 363 mph the LearJet was traveling at 532.4 feet per second. The plane is only 58.6 feet long and was practically nose diving when it hit. It was all over in 0.110 second (110 milliseconds). It takes the human brain stem .150 millisecond to perceive any type of awareness. They wouldn’t have felt it, or seen it, or heard it, when it actually slammed into the ground."
 
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