Florida Learjet crash: Plane was breaking apart

We want to head over down to South Florida where we know that the NTSB is speaking and offering another update on the crash, the jet crash that happened over the weekend. Let's listen in to what they have to say about the latest on their investigation. These 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. Thank you so much, Jessica, with NBC News. We talked about finding pieces of the elevator. Based on what you found from the tail and where you found it, what does that tell you about the likelihood this plane was falling apart in the sky? 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 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. So it's going to take some more analysis. But finding that piece is a very, very significant bit of evidence. Roy Ramos with Local 10 News. How confident are you that you will find critical pieces of that aircraft, like the black box within that crater, being that much of that aircraft is disintegrated? 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, That, 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 Scott, 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 then? 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. Just a bit of a unique quality of this incident is that it happened less than 10 miles from the president of the United States home. I'm 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 vapor systems and whatever, you know, protective measures they have may have in any way, you know, 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. Pardon me, I'm Sarah with the Palm Beach Post. As you mentioned, not only did the weather play a factor in the crash itself, but I'm assuming it's playing a factor in looking for the pieces that were found and whatnot. It's been continuously raining for days on end. Has that caused staffers with the NTSB to work faster than normal, maybe to try to find things before they get covered in maybe mud or washed away, whatever it may be? 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. And how would that impact the plane itself using that elevator? 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. Can you say what? Well, in terms of whether the... Whether a piece like that was lost 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. In your case, the The smart people in NTSB will be looking at those things. Yes, sir? Back to the elevator, because of the speed that it was descending, it was faster than the plane is 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, can you speak to what would you be gathering from the offices of the flight crew that you couldn't get from your own databases? Records. 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 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. Last question. Yes, sir. WPTV, are you able to share the amount of evidence, of pieces that have come from the aircraft? Um, they're... There's a lot. There's a lot there. 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've seen the video, you know, with 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 plan on trying to rebuild the aircraft? What's the procedure for that? 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. Okay, you're listening to a live update from the NTSB, an NTSB member, giving us really not too much of an update of that plane crash, that deadly plane crash that killed nine people over the weekend in Palm Beach County, Florida, en route to the Bahamas here. We've got a lot more going on here on the Fox Local live stream, a lot to talk about in terms of elections. We're going to check in with some of our reporters coming up here on the other side.