Family of 4 among those killed in Florida jet crash

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Gray News) - A family representative identified the passengers of the Learjet that crashed in a Florida neighborhood on Sunday.

“With broken hearts, our families share that Adam Robinson and Helen Sharp, their children Emma and Charlie, Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, and Anita Maria Cetina were among those lost aboard the flight that went down near Greenacres, Florida, on November 1,” the statement, posted on Facebook, read in part.

One of the pilots was previously identified by her mother as 20-year-old Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras.

The identity of the second pilot has not yet been confirmed.

All nine people were killed when the plane crashed into the street and exploded in a neighborhood close to West Palm Beach.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Federal investigators outline the probe but decline to speculate

National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said during a news conference Monday that investigators found evidence the aircraft started breaking up before it hit the ground and that debris from the aircraft could be spread far and wide.

“We do have some indication that the aircraft was breaking up before impact,” Chapman said. “We may find parts of the aircraft some distance away from the actual impact site.”

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said key components of the jet’s tail may have been lost during the turbulence or as it nose-dived.

“If that happens, you cannot control an airplane at that point. And that very well could explain the missile-like profile just before it hit the ground,” said Guzzetti, a former NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration investigator.

Weather conditions will be a major focus of the investigation, Chapman said. Rain pounded the region on Sunday, and one of the pilots reported icing conditions at a high altitude in communications with air traffic control.

Weather radar maps from the time of the crash that FlightRadar24 combined with the plane’s flight path seem to show it flying directly into a storm cell that was rapidly expanding upward. But Chapman said investigators still have to determine what the weather conditions were at 35,000 feet.

Chapman said the plane was originally equipped with a cockpit voice recorder that investigators hope to recover.

“We have a lot of work to do on scene,” NTSB investigator Timothy Monville said at the news conference. “This will be a several-day process, and the biggest obstacle that we’re going to have is recovering the major wreckage from the impacted crater on the roadway.”