The cockpit voice recorder was not working on a medical transport plane that crashed in Philadelphia in January and likely had not been working for several years, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report issued Thursday. The NTSB also confirmed that the flight crew made no distress calls to air traffic control.
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.
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.
The high-impact crash left the plane “highly fragmented,” she said. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered about 8 feet (2.4 meters) beneath the ground’s surface.
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.
