Federal investigators said Monday that weather conditions are a central line of inquiry in the investigation into the fiery private jet crash that killed nine people in South Florida.
National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said investigators have preliminary evidence that the Learjet 60 began breaking apart before striking a neighborhood in Palm Beach County on Sunday afternoon.
“We do have some indication that the aircraft was breaking up before impact,” Chapman said at a Monday news conference. “Some of this has yet to be determined. We may find parts of the aircraft some distance away from the actual impact site.”
Police work near the site of a plane crash in Greenacres, Florida, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Chapman said investigators are also reviewing the conditions the jet encountered at roughly 35,000 feet, where the crew reported icing and moderate turbulence shortly before the crash.
“The weather conditions are a major focus of the investigation,” Chapman said. “You all saw what the weather was like here at the surface. What we have to determine is what the weather conditions were like at altitude.”
According to the NTSB, the aircraft left Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas at about 10:37 a.m. Sunday. It was headed for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas with two crew members and seven passengers aboard.
At approximately 12:47 p.m., the crew reported manageable light clear ice and moderate turbulence while flying at 35,000 feet. The aircraft deviated from its assigned altitude by about 700 feet.
The crew also reported an outside temperature of minus 47 degrees Celsius, or minus 53 degrees Fahrenheit, before asking to climb to 37,000 feet after encountering precipitation.
Flames rise after an aircraft incident in Palm Beach County, Florida. (Eduin Cruz/via REUTERS)
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Air traffic controllers approved the request, but less than 30 seconds later the crew reported a descent and issued a mayday call at approximately 12:48 p.m.
“We are in an overspeed condition, descending,” the crew transmitted, according to Chapman. He said the rest of the message could not be understood.
Later communications showed that the jet was rapidly losing altitude before crashing into a residential area near Cresthaven, Florida, at about 12:50 p.m. All nine people aboard died.
Timothy Manville, the NTSB investigator in charge, said the on-site investigation would continue for several days. Recovering the wreckage from a crater in the roadway is expected to be a major challenge.
“The biggest obstacle that we’re going to have is recovering the major wreckage from the impacted crater on the roadway,” Manville said.
Dashcam video showed the jet diving nose-first into the neighborhood before erupting in a massive fireball, as previously reported by News Outlet.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the crash “cataclysmic” Sunday, saying the aircraft “looked like a missile going down” and created a large crater next to the road.
The crash also led officials to evacuate about 600 people from a nearby mobile home community.
The Federal Aviation Administration is assisting with the NTSB investigation. The cause of the crash remains undetermined.
