All six people aboard a private jet were killed in Maine on Sunday when the aircraft flipped upside down and crashed during take-off in heavy snow – with chilling audio capturing someone saying, “Let there be light” moments before the tragedy.
The victims were not immediately identified, but the doomed jet was registered to one of the founding partners of a major Texas personal-injury law firm, Arnold & Itkin.
Kurt Arnold and Jason Itkin, the firm’s owners, are mega-donors to Texas Longhorns football — pledging a combined $40 million to the college program — and to local Republican causes, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The twin-engine turbo-fan Bombardier Challenger 600 went up in flames after it went down at Bangor International Airport at about 7:45 p.m. during Winter Storm Fern, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
In a radio recording taken as the plane was preparing to take off, an unidentified voice could be heard saying, “Let there be light.”
It wasn’t clear if a pilot or an air traffic controller made the remark or what specifically they may have been referring to at the time.
Minutes later, another voice could be heard repeatedly shouting, “All traffic is stopped on the field!” — as emergency crews rushed to the scene.
Audio from air traffic controllers captured someone saying, “Aircraft upside down, we have a passenger aircraft upside down,” roughly 45 seconds after the jet was cleared to take off.
Officials initially said there were seven people aboard the doomed plane, with six killed but a crew member miraculously surviving with serious injuries.
The airport later said in a statement on its Web site Monday, “According to the flight manifest there were six people on the flight.
“No one from the incident was transported to the hospital, and all on the flight are presumed to be deceased.”
Sgt Jeremy Brock, public information officer with the Bangor Police Department, reiterated what the airport said about the flight manifesto saying six people were onboard at the time, adding, “We are operating under the presumption that all that were on the aircraft are deceased until we can officially confirm that information through the investigation.
“I have no information available to me over the past 24 hours that indicates that ground staff was injured as a result of this incident,” he added.
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The cause of the wreck is still under investigation.
Preliminary details indicate the business jet crashed as it was trying to take off and quickly exploded into flames, investigators said.
Snowfall was heavy at the time, but only a couple of inches had fallen at that point.
Other planes were taking off safely at the time, officials said.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 has a history of problems with icing on takeoff – with even a little bit of ice on the wings known to cause issues, according to aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti.
The plane, which had landed at Bangor from Houston at 6:09 p.m., would have been sitting outside in the snowstorm before trying to take off again.
Planes were being deiced at the airport at the time of the crash, airport officials said — but it wasn’t known if the business jet had been treated.
“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,” he said.
In addition to Texas college football, both lawyers Arnold and Itkin are also political donors who created a PAC to “protect the constitutional rights of all Texans” — contributing to Republicans in the Lone Star State.
The airport was closed immediately after the crash and won’t reopen until at least noon on Wednesday.
New York Post
