A piece of the Learjet that slammed into the ground in Florida , killing all nine people aboard, was found nearly 4 miles from the crash site, investigators said Tuesday, confirming that the plane was breaking apart before impact.
National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said most of the left elevator — part of the tail that controls the plane’s pitch — was found in three pieces between 1.3 miles (2 kilometers) and 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) from Greenacres, near West Palm Beach, where the jet went down Sunday afternoon.
“What that means exactly, in terms of what caused the aircraft to lose control, or whether the loss of this piece was a result of the forces on the aircraft, we don’t know yet,” Chapman said at a news conference. Without the elevator intact, the pilot would not have been able to pull the Learjet out of its nosedive, Chapman said. “At those speeds I don’t know that it would’ve been effective even if it had still been attached to the aircraft, but knowing that it was lost is a very important piece of evidence in terms of pointing us toward other things to investigate,” Chapman said. The pieces that broke off the plane were probably a byproduct of the nosedive, not the cause, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told The Associated Press. Their discovery within a few miles of the crash site suggests the elevator components fell off closer to the ground, he said. “If those parts would have broken off at altitude, those pieces would be a lot farther away,” Guzzetti said.
The government in Cetina’s native Colombia said it was providing assistance to her family.
