Federal investigators have recovered a critical component from the Learjet 60 that crashed in Florida on Sunday, with pieces of the aircraft scattered miles from the main wreckage.
The private jet departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport at about 10:37 a.m. bound for North Eleuthera Airport in the Bahamas. Shortly before 1 p.m., it crashed in Palm Beach County, killing all nine people aboard.
Investigators located the aircraft’s pitch-control component, the left tail elevator, in three pieces. One section was found nearly four miles from the crash site.
Investigators examine the site of a plane crash in Greenacres, Florida, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
National Transportation Safety Board member Thomas B. Chapman described the recovered left tail elevator as a “very important piece of evidence” during a briefing Tuesday.
Chapman said fragments of the elevator were discovered between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the crash site, suggesting the component may have separated from the Learjet before impact. Investigators will examine the debris to determine whether the loss of the flight-control surface contributed to the crash or whether aerodynamic forces pulled it from the aircraft.
Investigators expect to reach the crater by Wednesday. The area remains closed while public utility crews continue repair and cleanup work.
A Learjet 60 crashed into a South Florida neighborhood Sunday afternoon, creating a huge fireball about nine miles from Mar-a-Lago. (Aki Kuusisto via Storyful)
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Former NTSB investigator Greg Feith said the debris pattern is consistent with an in-flight breakup. He suggested that an attempt by one of the pilots to bring the jet level may have placed excessive stress on the aircraft’s structure.
“One of the clues here is that there was an in-flight breakup and that a critical flight control, as the board member said, did come off in flight,” Feith said. “You can see that the airplane leveled off at about 8,000 feet for a very short period of time. That may have been one of the pilots trying to control the airplane, level the airplane, and in doing so over-stretched the structure of the aircraft, causing those parts to fail and come off.”
Adam Robinson, 45, an Austin technology entrepreneur, was one of nine people killed in the Learjet crash in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Nov. 1. He was traveling with his wife and their two young children. (Fox News)
“They’re close to the main impact, which says that those parts came off at a very low altitude,” he added.
The victims included Austin technology entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 45; his wife, Helen Sharp, 40; and their children, Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2, according to relatives. The family’s nanny, Anita Maria Cetina, and Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr also died. The aircraft’s captain, Jeff Gregory, 55, and copilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, were killed as well.
Adam Robinson and his wife, Helen Sharp, were aboard the Learjet with their two young children when it crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, after departing Texas for the Bahamas on Nov. 1. (Fox News)
Federal investigators have identified weather as a “major focus” of the investigation. The crew reported icing and moderate turbulence at roughly 35,000 feet shortly before the jet rapidly lost altitude.
The Learjet was fitted with a cockpit voice recorder, but investigators have not located the device and cannot yet verify whether it was aboard the aircraft at the time of the crash, NTSB officials said.
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