LIVE: NTSB Holds Briefing on Jet Crash in Palm Beach County, Florida

Well, good afternoon, and for those of you who were here yesterday, again, my name is Tom Chapman. I'm a board member with the National Transportation Safety Board. To recap, our full team arrived yesterday, and our investigator in charge, Timothy Monville, is back at the scene today with the rest of our investigators. They're continuing the work necessary to thoroughly document the accident and to gather critical evidence. I had an opportunity to visit the site myself both yesterday afternoon and again about three hours ago. We are aware now, as I'm sure you are, of the names of the victims of this tragedy. We're keeping them in our thoughts, as I'm sure you are. I do want to provide a brief update on NTSB's activities investigating the crash of a Learjet 60 aircraft here in Palm Beach County. I want to manage expectations and emphasize that yesterday marked the first full day on the scene for our investigative team. We don't have a lot of new information to share here today, but we do have some updates that we believe you will find helpful. Severe storms moved through the area late yesterday that hampered some response activities. However, our team, along with our local and state partners, have been working diligently so affected members of the community can return to their homes and businesses. We understand authorities are very close to making limited access available for local residents. Here are additional efforts, here are additional details about our efforts so far. Today, our primary activities include documenting and collecting airplane wreckage with the support of other federal, state and local authorities. Yesterday, the majority of the aircraft's left elevator was located in three pieces within a range about 1.3 to 3.8 miles away from the accident site. Those items are being retained for analysis. For those not as familiar with aircraft components, the elevator is a control surface located on the tail, which controls the up and down pitch of the aircraft. I want to repeat what I emphasized yesterday, which is if members of the community come across items that they believe may be part of the aircraft or the aircraft wreckage, please don't touch them or move them. Please contact NTSB or local authorities and we will take appropriate action. NTSB is working with local public works teams to begin water removal from the impact crater so our investigation in and around the crater can begin. We believe that will begin tomorrow in terms of being able to access the crater. A key step was the removal of an unstable utility pole this morning, and that took quite a bit of work, and Public Works folks were terrific in the work that they did, which is frankly very dangerous work. We were happy to see that happen because that helps us now access the crater and begin to stabilize it. We expect to find critical airplane components within the crater. Witnesses have been quite helpful. I understand that we've now received dash cam footage and multiple eyewitness accounts that will help us better understand the condition of the aircraft and the circumstances of the crash. NTSB's Transportation Disaster Assistance Team continues to work with family members and displaced local residents to be sure they're being connected to the resources that they need. I want to again express our sincere appreciation to the state of Florida, Palm Beach County, The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and all of the local authorities and first responders who have done such incredible work. Their assistance and coordination with the NTSB has been invaluable. I want to note this will be our last on-site briefing. Any additional updates will be posted on the NTSB website and through our media relations account on X. With that, I want to thank you again for your interest. I'm happy to take questions. Please state your name and identify your affiliation if I call on you. Yes, sir. Well, certainly it tells us that at least some components, some pieces of the aircraft, important pieces of the aircraft, separated before the impact. What that means exactly in terms of what... Cause the aircraft to lose control or whether the the loss of this piece was a result of the forces on the aircraft. We don't know yet. So it's going to take some more analysis. But finding that piece is the very, very significant bit of evidence. How confident are you that you will find critical pieces of that aircraft like the black box within that crater? Much of that aircraft is disintegrating. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of work. We have... Terrific folks. I feel confident that they're going to find the evidence that they need within that crater, despite the challenges. I feel confident they're going to find what they need to help put together what happened here and why it happened. Yes, ma'am. Terry Parker, WPBF 25. Yesterday, you mentioned how critical the weather may be had played a part in this. Given that, have you gotten very far in looking at the plane's maintenance schedule to find out, for example, was the radar working? That's ongoing, and I don't think we have enough information yet to be able to say one way or another. But weather does remain a major... Weather is certainly a key focus of the investigation. Yes, sir? Ted Scalvin, CBS News, Miami. Have you been able to look into the certifications of the pilot and co-pilot, and was everyone certified or someone certified to fly that? That work is ongoing. I know that our team... Early in any investigation, that's one of the first things they begin looking at. I don't have that information yet and don't have anything to share with you today. Yes, sir? The unique quality of this incident is that it happened less than 10 miles from the United States home. I'm just curious, compared to when you investigate other crashes, is there an added layer here in terms of probing the Secret Services protocols and what was going on at Mar-a-Lago that day and how, you know, their radar systems and whatever protective measures they have may have in any way attributed or spotted things? Yeah, there's... There's no evidence at all that there's any connection there. It's entirely coincidental in terms of the location of the accident site, but no, nothing at all that indicates any connection. Is that an agency you've directly checked with to confirm that, or it's just nothing has pointed you that way? Nothing has pointed us that direction. Our people may have contacted Secret Service. They often talk with various agencies in the course of an investigation. I'm not aware they've done that. It wouldn't surprise me if they had, but again, there's nothing pointing us in that direction. Yes, ma'am? Well, I can't say that it's causing them to work faster, but it certainly is something that's hanging over the investigation as a key challenge. This isn't the first time we've had to deal with challenges like that, but obviously it does make it difficult, not just for us, but for the other folks that are working out there, state and local agencies, public works people. This is hard work, and it's a difficult scene, no question about it. Yes, ma'am? You mentioned about the tail elevator being found. Does that indicate to you that it was separate from the plane before impact, or could the impact have sheared that off? No, the distance from the site indicates that it separated before impact. And how far did you say it was? It's a range of, let me get the numbers correct here. The range, I'm told, was from about 1.3 to 3.8 miles away. 1.3 to 3.8 miles away. So some questions. Quite some distance away from the accident site. So it seems implausible that it would have been a result of the impact. It would have separated before the impact. Would that impact the plane itself? Well, at the speed the aircraft was traveling, I'm not sure it would have been effective. But the function of the elevator is to control pitch up and down. At those speeds, I don't know that it would have 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 towards other things to investigate. Well, in terms of whether a piece like that was lost. It may have contributed to the crash itself or whether the forces on the aircraft caused that to separate. We don't know that yet, but those are the two likely possibilities that we'll want to examine. Yes, sir. Captain Steve Arroyo, Aviation News Updates. With weather being a key factor in the investigation and with flight operations and air traffic control investigations thus far, Has there been any talk about the phenomena of Mach tuck and that being a contributing factor in the accident? I don't think we're far enough along in the investigation. The folks we have who are really experts in this area, I'm sure, are going to be looking at factors like that. But that's, frankly, beyond my level of expertise. The smart people at NTSB will be looking at those things. Yes, sir? Back to the elevator, because of the speed that it was descending, that was faster than the plane was able to go. Is it the thought that it perhaps fell apart? That is certainly one possibility. Certainly one possibility. Can you clarify where those pieces were found? Were they in the backyard of a resident? I don't know the location, no. Yes, sir. Our team yesterday saw some federal investigators, whether they were from NTSB or FAA or another agency, gathering material from an office in Fort Lauderdale where it was the office of the co-pilot's company. Far away from the crash site, you speak to, what would you be gathering from the offices of the flight crew that you couldn't get from your own database? Records. Records. About them specifically? Yeah. About the plane? Well, I don't know which office specifically, but we certainly, at this stage of an investigation, are making visits to remote locations, remote from the accident site, to gather information and document key records, aircraft maintenance, crew records, crew performance, those sorts of things. So I'm not sure exactly what your folks saw, but that wouldn't be unusual at all for an investigation at this stage. Yes, sir? Are you able to share the amount of evidence of pieces that have come from the aircraft? There's a lot. Almost entirely very small pieces. So we don't really even in most cases know what it is We've found our people will be sorting through that and they're good at kind of putting that puzzle back together But you saw you've seen the video, you know with the the force of that impact Even the elements of the aircraft that are in the crater are going to be very likely in smaller pieces. So we don't know exactly what all we have yet, but that's part of the investigation very early here. It's a big puzzle to try to put together. Once you have all the pieces, do you try to rebuild the aircraft? What we often do... We essentially try to not literally reassemble the aircraft, but we try to lay out the aircraft in their facilities where we're able to do this, lay it out in such a way that we can try to identify as much as possible the shape, the form, the location of the various components that we've found. And sometimes that helps us identify something that may have occurred, which may not be obvious. The force of this impact very, very severely damaged the remnants of the wreckage and so I don't know how realistic it is that we're going to be able to do that, but that is a possibility in terms of the investigation as it goes forward. Thank you all again very much. Keep an eye on our website and also our X feed. There may be additional updates. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Joseph Abruzzo, county administrator under state of the emergency. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm our local incident commander. To expand upon your question, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. just to add some context to it, our main airport, President Donald J. Trump International Airport is a county facility. The board that runs the airport is the Board of County Commissioners. Commissioner Bobby Powell is to my right. I would like to point out that we did not receive any interference or reports of interference to the airport. So Common sense, if there were issues likely with radar or other issues, our air