BANGOR, Maine — Several people were killed after a business jet registered to a Houston company flipped over and caught fire as it tried to take off during a snowstorm from Maine’s Bangor International Airport, according to federal authorities and air traffic controller recordings.
Local authorities in Bangor, citing the flight manifest, said in a Monday afternoon news release that six people were aboard the flight and all of them are presumed to be dead. The Federal Aviation Administration reported earlier in the day that seven people died in the crash and a crew member survived with serious injuries.
The identities of the people on the flight had not been released as of Monday afternoon.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 crashed on takeoff at around 7:45 p.m. Sunday as New England and much of the country grappled with a massive winter storm. The airport, about 200 miles north of Boston, shut down after the crash. Snowfall was heavy at the time, as it was in many other parts of the country.
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FAA records show the plane is registered to a corporation with the same Houston address as the Arnold & Itkin law firm, a prominent personal injury firm. One of the law firm’s founding partners is listed as the registered agent for the company that owns the plane.
The law firm did not immediately comment on the crash when contacted Monday morning by Houston Public Media.
The plane model involved “has a history of problems with icing on takeoff” that has caused previous crashes, aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti said. The former federal crash investigator said even a little bit of ice on the wings can cause serious problems, so this plane would have needed to be deiced before takeoff but it’s not clear when or if that was done.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. The NTSB said preliminary information shows the plane crashed upon departure and experienced a post-crash fire, but that it would have no further statement until after investigators arrive in a day or two.
The NTSB said it has no role in the release of information about victims and that such information is handled by local authorities. But airport director Jose Saavedra refused to comment, saying at a news conference Monday that he was “awaiting guidance and support from federal partners.”
An audio recording of air traffic controllers includes someone saying “Aircraft upside down. We have a passenger aircraft upside down,” about 45 seconds after a plane was cleared for takeoff. First responders arrived less than a minute later, Saavedra said.
Bangor International Airport offers direct flights to cities like Orlando, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, North Carolina, and is located about 200 miles north of Boston. It was closed shortly after the crash and will remain closed until at least noon Wednesday.
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The crash happened as New England and much of the country grappled with a massive winter storm. Bangor had undergone steady snowfall Sunday, though planes were landing and departing around the time of the crash, Saavedra said.
The National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine, said the airport received nearly 10 inches of snow in total, though the snowfall was just beginning at the time of the crash.
“We have crews on site that respond to weather storms on a regular basis,” he said. “This is normal for us to respond to weather events.”
Throughout the weekend, the vast storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the eastern half of the U.S., halting much air and road traffic and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the Southeast.
Commercial air traffic was also heavily disrupted around much of the U.S. Some 12,000 flights were canceled Sunday and nearly 20,000 were delayed, according to the flight tracker flightaware.com. Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey were among those impacted.
Jet has history of problems with ice
The Bombardier Challenger 600 is a wide-bodied business jet configured for nine to 11 passengers. It was launched in 1980 as the first private jet with a “walk-about cabin” and remains a popular charter option, according to aircharterservice.com.
The plane had just landed at Bangor from Houston at 6:09 p.m., according to FlightRadar24.com, so it would have likely been sitting outside in the snow for more than an hour before it tried to take off again. And it wouldn’t have taken long for ice to start building up on the wings — particularly if the plane was refueled with cold jet fuel that’s stored in wing tanks, a factor the NTSB has cited in previous crashes.
Airport officials said planes were being deiced at the airport at the time of the crash, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether this particular plane was treated before it tried to take off.
“Given the weather conditions at the time, and the history of wind contamination with this particular aircraft, I’m sure that’s something the NTSB is going to look into immediately,” Guzzetti said. “If there was any kind of precipitation at all, freezing precipitation, they would have needed to clean off those wings before they took off.”
Bombardier and the FAA recommended new procedures after the previous crashes to ensure these planes’ wings are free of ice, and Guzzetti said there have not been many crashes related to this problem in the last few years.
The airport in Bangor is by far the largest city in Maine’s northern and eastern reaches. Its longstanding joint use agreement with the Maine Air National Guard means “runways are ready rain or shine – or snow,” an airport website says, under the phrase: “A Little Snow Doesn’t Scare Us.”
Houston Public Media’s Andrew Schneider contributed to this report.
This is a developing story.
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