Key facts
- The NTSB said it recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the Learjet crash site in Palm Beach county and sent it to a Washington lab for evaluation.
- The Learjet was bound for the Bahamas and crashed on November 1 in severe weather, and all nine people on board were killed.
- Investigators said elevator parts found more than a mile from the main crater show the plane began to break apart before impact.
- Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told the Associated Press the recorder's orange metal shell appeared to be in decent shape in agency photos.
- The co-pilot told air traffic controllers the plane was being thrown up and down more than 700 feet (213 meters) and asked for a different route.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on November 9 that it had recovered the cockpit voice recorder from a business jet that struck the ground in Palm Beach county, Florida, on November 1 and killed all nine people on board.
The Learjet, which was bound for the Bahamas and operated by Upper Jets, came down in severe weather and caught fire on impact. The NTSB said the device was being evaluated at a laboratory in Washington, and it was not immediately clear whether the recorder had been damaged or had been functioning.
Photographs posted by the agency showed the recorder's orange-painted metal shell, and aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told the Associated Press it appeared to be in decent shape. "If they can recover it, and it's from the accident flight, that will be a huge help to investigators," he said. He noted that the cockpit voice recorder recovered from a medical transport plane that crashed in Philadelphia in January 2025, killing seven people, likely had not been functioning for years.
Witness video showed the jet descending nose-first, and air traffic control recordings captured the pilots as they realized the situation. A recorder could show why the Learjet appeared to steer around a large storm cell only to fly into a smaller, rapidly developing one, and the pilots' exchanges as the plane met turbulence and ice formed on the wings.
Investigators have said elevator parts, which control the aircraft's pitch, were found more than a mile from the main crater, a finding they say confirms the plane began to break apart before impact. The co-pilot told controllers the plane was being thrown up and down more than 700 feet (213 meters).