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New London, Wisconsin | Clay SEIA - 11/3/2026 11:32
Yes, it's also plausible here that only the horizontal stabs iced enough to stall. Resulting in abrupt loss of pitch control, the overspeed call made on ATC freq, and Mach tuck shifting the center of lift to the rear.
This is one of the plausible arguments the NTSB is considering. The are a few other possibilities, but most revolve around the same issue. Ice, and turbulence of a thunderstorm. Until they announce a finding, it's just guessing. Even from those of us who are pilots. Several of the related causes still don't blame the crew for any lack of talent.
There are a few of these events each year, but normally involving smaller aircraft and far less media hype. The general cause has historically been. "I didn't know the weather was going to do that or I would not have been there". Rarely do they get to explain it in detail. One of our astronauts of fame, I forgot which one, got into a situation like this many years ago in a Cessna 210 he owned. It ripped the wings off. Nothing you can do after that. There has been speculation the horizontal stabilator may have sheared off in the dive, but what tipped it into the dive would be the greater cause.
In 30 days a preliminary finding is often released. There isn't much to go by from that particular hole in the ground. It was a part 135 flight, which means a charter flight and likely no black box.
I'm personally not going to speculate, but I will admit those thinking severe ice or severe turbulence with ice have a good argument. We do know both were present at the time.
I have seen the ADS-b track of the plane in relation to the position of the storm. They did try to fly around a small but dramatic buildup. One of the problems still facing pilots in bad weather is the indications of storm location and intensity is between less than a minute and up to 15 minutes old when displayed. That's a big problem in a fast moving aircraft and a fast building storm. I DO believe that may have been a contributing factor.
I did hear very recently that NTSB is asking locals to be on the look out for any debris from the accident that broke off or was thrown from the explosion of impact. Nothing at the bottom of that hole is going to be more than a blob of melted aluminum. I did see a mark on the pavement from the right wing that lets us so far believe that that wing was still attached at time of impact.
BTW. I actually did about 2 hours of training once in a class by NTSB about aircraft accident investigation. That only gives me enough knowledge to know how much more I don't know.
Jim | |
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? about that Lear jet crash.
