Ice Will Be 'a Major Focus' of the Learjet Inquiry, the NTSB Says - and One Man on the Ground Was Hurt by Debris

The question at the center of the federal investigation into Sunday's Learjet crash in Greenacres is the one the crew themselves raised in their final minute: ice. The crew's report of ice and sub-zero temperatures in the atmosphere will be 'a major focus' of the National Transportation Safety Board's inquiry, officials said at Monday's news conference near West Palm Beach, the Palm Beach Post reported. The Learjet 60, operated by Aurora Airlines, doing business as Upper Jets, flew directly into a thunderstorm over South Florida that rocketed clouds skyward by 15,000 feet in 20 minutes; experts who reviewed the flight path data and radar images told the Post the jet may have been trying to climb above the storm, whose intense upward rush of moist, warm air may have led to the rapid freezing of water droplets that otherwise do not ice up at higher altitudes.

The board's other stated hunts are for the airplane's in-flight recorder and for the pieces of the jet itself. 'We do have some evidence that there was some breaking up of the airplane before impact,' NTSB board member Tom Chapman said, and another focus will be finding the recorder, which could contain the information that explains the descent the co-pilot announced moments after a controller cleared the climb to 37,000 feet: 'Mayday, mayday. We're descending 10,000 feet per minute.' CNN, citing the flight data, put the plunge at 450 feet per second, and counted the crash as the second-deadliest plane crash in the United States this year, behind only the June skydiving-plane crash in Butler, Missouri, that killed 12.

Monday also corrected the ground toll. Early official accounts reported no injuries on the ground; the fuller record is that one injury was reported from the debris, which hit a man in the leg and caused minor injuries, as the jet's impact crushed cars, cut power, damaged a water main and spread wreckage across the neighborhood beside Military Trail. All nine people aboard were killed. Authorities have still released no official identifications of the nine; family members have identified eight of the victims, CNN reported, and this desk continues to publish names only as officials release them or as families state them on the record, as it did with the families' joint statement in SQ-20261102-052.