Investigators have been unable to find the cockpit sound recorder from a private jet that crashed earlier this month in Virginia, complicating efforts to understand why the pilot became incapacitated and flew across much of the US East Coast while unconscious.
(Bloomberg) — Investigators have been unable to find the cockpit sound recorder from a private jet that crashed earlier this month in Virginia, complicating efforts to understand why the pilot became incapacitated and flew across much of the US East Coast while unconscious.
The so-called black box remains missing from the wreckage of the Cessna 560 Citation V collected from the remote, mountainous crash site, according to a preliminary report issued Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board. It didn’t specify whether the search for the device is ongoing.
Cockpit voice recorders are designed to withstand crash impacts and are almost always recovered eventually, but the jet hit the ground so hard that the plane’s structure was “extremely fragmented,” the NTSB said. The recorder was last inspected in May, according to maintenance records.
The jet triggered alarms over Washington on June 4 as it flew over sensitive government sites without permission, prompting the military to scramble fighter jets to intercept it. The F-16s flew faster than the speed of sound, triggering loud sonic booms across the region.
Three passengers — prominent Hamptons real estate agent Adina Azarian, her two-year-old daughter and a nanny — died along with the pilot. The jet dove into a remote area of Virginia after flying past the US capital. Jeff Hefner, a retired Southwest Airlines Co. pilot, was at the controls of the plane.
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The fighter jets attempted to radio the pilot, conducted maneuvers to get his attention and fired flares, the NTSB said.
The last contact between the pilot and air-traffic controllers occurred 15 minutes after it took off. The pilot had acknowledged a command to climb to 34,000 feet, but didn’t respond when a controller ordered him to go only as high as 33,000 feet, the NTSB said.
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