Deadly plane crash in Michigan mirrors similar business jet crash last year
By Pete Muntean, CNN
Washington (CNN) — New air traffic control audio captures pilots in an apparent struggle to regain control of a private business jet as the plane plunged into woods near Lansing, Michigan on Thursday, killing all three on board.
“Stall recovery, stall recovery,” one of the pilots of the Mexican-registered Hawker 800XP can be heard transmitting to air traffic control in a recording by LiveATC.net.
The controller from the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center then tried to reach the pilots seven times with no response.
Bystanders captured video showing the jet corkscrewing toward the ground, then disappearing behind homes before a large black plume of smoke appears.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced Friday it has opened an investigation into the crash.
The crash happened during a test flight at the end of scheduled maintenance performed by Duncan Aviation, according to a statement from the company.
Two pilots working for the jet owner and their maintenance representative were killed in the crash.
“Right now, our focus is on supporting the families and friends of the crew, our team members who worked on the aircraft and developed close relationships with the aircraft’s representatives, and anyone else touched by the tragic event,” Duncan Aviation President Mike Minchow said in the statement.
Publicly available preliminary flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange shows the plane departing Battle Creek Executive Airport, about 125 miles west of Detroit, at 5:08 p.m. local time, then climbing to 15,000 feet.
Less than 20 minutes later, the rate of descent increased suddenly — at times reaching a blistering 24,000 feet per minute.
Tracking information shows the ill-fated plunge lasted roughly one minute.
Before the crash, air traffic control audio captures the pilots requesting an altitude range — known as a block altitude — to maneuver the airplane.
Data from FlightAware shows the plane, registered XA-JMR, had been flown to Michigan from Mexico on March 25 and had not been flown since.
In February 2024, two pilots of a similar Hawker business jet were killed when performing an after-maintenance test flight in which they had to test the plane’s system that warns of an aerodynamic stall.
The NTSB has published a preliminary report on that crash, but a final report and probable cause have not yet been published.
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