All nine aboard died when a Learjet 60 went down in Palm Beach County. Will the NTSB report recovering its voice recorder by Nov 9?
62% of users predicted NO — the community missed this one. 8 predictions cast.
The National Transportation Safety Board recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage of a Learjet 60 that crashed near Greenacres, Florida, on Nov. 1, killing all nine people aboard. The agency announced the recovery on Monday, Nov. 9, saying the device was found at the initial impact site and is being evaluated at the NTSB's Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C. It remains unknown whether the recorder was damaged or whether any usable audio can be extracted from it.
The recovery followed more than a week of work at a debris field that stretched for miles; pieces of the aircraft's left elevator were found between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the main crash site, consistent with the NTSB's earlier assessment that the jet broke apart in flight before impact. The aircraft had departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas bound for North Eleuthera in the Bahamas and encountered severe weather over South Florida before going down.
The NTSB has not released a timeline for determining a probable cause. A preliminary report is expected within weeks, while a final determination in crashes like this typically takes more than a year.
The Predict Six community put only 38% odds on the recorder being recovered by Nov. 9, underestimating how quickly investigators would locate and extract the device despite the difficult, water-logged crash site.