An unresponsive business jet that flew off course over the nation’s capital plunged in a “near-vertical descent” into a Virginia mountain at a “high velocity” before bursting into flames, according to a federal report released Wednesday.
The preliminary findings shed little light on what might have caused the June 4 crash, which killed four people. However, outside observers and the plane’s owner have theorized that a lack of oxygen may have led to the crash. Federal investigators found no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder at the crash site, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report said.
The plane took an erratic flight path—turning around over New York’s Long Island to fly directly over Washington, some of the most heavily restricted airspace in the nation. That alarmed the U.S. military and prompted the Pentagon to scramble six F-16 fighter jets to intercept, causing a loud sonic boom over the region. Pilots of the fighter jets reported that the small plane’s pilot appeared slumped over.
The plane’s cockpit was destroyed by the crash’s impact, while the wreckage was fragmented and scattered around a main crater, the NTSB said. Maintenance inspection records indicated that the plane was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder, the report stated, although the aircraft was not required to have a flight data recorder, which monitors things like altitude, airspeed, and heading.
Air traffic controllers were initially in normal communication with the pilot. He was cleared for higher and higher altitudes as the plane began its ascent from Elizabethton, Tennessee.