Medical plane’s voice recorder likely wasn’t working for years before Philadelphia crash
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The cockpit voice recorder was not working on a medical transport plane that killed seven people when it plummeted into a Philadelphia neighborhood in January and likely had not been functional for several years, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report Thursday. The NTSB also confirmed Thursday that the crew made no distress calls to air traffic control. A ground warning system that may contain flight data memory is still being evaluated by the manufacturer, the agency said.
The medical transportation plane plummeted into a residential and commercial area within a minute of taking off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport and erupted into a fireball on the evening of Jan. 31. Officials said the crash killed all six people aboard the Learjet 55 and a seventh person who was inside a vehicle on the ground. At least two dozen others on the ground were injured, including a 10-year-old boy in a vehicle who was hit by debris while trying to protect his sister.
Former NTSB chairman Jim Hall called the finding about the cockpit recording “disturbing” because “that and the whole flight data recorder are important to find out what went wrong so it can be prevented in the future.”
“It’s a significant loss of important information that should have been there,” Hall said. He noted that the lack of any distress call shows that the emergency occurred too quickly for the crew to communicate with the tower.
Those on the plane included an 11-year-old girl who had been receiving medical treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia hospital. Jet Rescue Air Ambulance said the plane had been taking Valentina Guzmán Murillo and her 31-year-old mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna, home to Mexico.
Jet Rescue identified its team members as Dr. Raul Meza Arredondo, 41; the captain, Alan Montoya Perales, 46; the copilot, Josue de Jesus Juarez Juarez, 43; and paramedic Rodrigo Lopez Padilla, 41. All four were from Mexico.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy has said air traffic controllers didn’t hear anything concerning before the crash.
According to the report, the recorder was recovered eight feet (2.4 meters) underground after the plane crashed and had significant damage, including exposure to liquids. After extensive cleaning and repairs, the agency discovered the 30-minute tape did not have any audio of the flight.
The high-impact crash left the plane highly fragmented, and a debris field that the NTSB on Thursday said was about 1,410 ft in length and 840 ft wide.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who visited the crash site with investigators, said that the aircraft came down at “a very steep angle” and that the impact area was notably “expansive.”
City officials said the resulting fire and debris destroyed or significantly damaged more than a dozen homes and businesses.
Andrew Parker Felix, an Orlando, Florida-based lawyer, represents a man who was driving home from work when his SUV became engulfed in jet fuel from the crash. He said the man spent 11 days in an intensive care burn unit, enduring skin grafts.
“This is going to be a long road of recovery in front of him,” Felix said.
At least three other law firms have said they represent victims of the crash.
The crash was among a series of recent aviation disasters and close calls that left some people worried about the safety of flying. It came just two days after an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter collided in midair in Washington, D.C. — the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a generation.
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press
