Trying to find out if the guy who wrote this is legit and not AI but does seem to be legit(although this may be written by AI which many do now for business emails) and breaks it down for everyone...
The NTSB will have the final word, but as a former Law Enforcement Officer specializing in crash investigations, as well as a 26-year airline veteran and having been trained and experienced in airliner crash investigations as a member of the NTSB “Go Team”, I have been tracking the data on the tragic Learjet 60 crash in Florida. The internet is flooded with “cruise missile” conspiracy theories. However, the raw physics and the physical evidence on the ground completely debunk that nonsense.
A cursory review of the flight data revealed an aircraft at 35,000 feet entering an area of known precipitation, turbulence, and severe icing near a rapidly intensifying storm cell that ballooned 15,000 feet upward in just 20 minutes. This was followed by a sudden plunge with descent rates topping 32,000 feet per minute, which is roughly 360 mph straight down. To anyone who understands aerodynamics and aircraft structures, that strongly suggests a catastrophic aerodynamic upset where the airframe was pushed far past its absolute breaking point.
The trouble likely started with severe icing on the tail. On a T-tail aircraft like the Learjet 60, the horizontal stabilizer has a tighter surface curvature than the main wing, meaning it collects ice much faster. If ice disrupts the airflow over the tail, it loses its downward aerodynamic lift, which is the exact force that keeps the nose up. The result is an immediate, violent nose down pitch.
As the jet pitched down and rapidly accelerated out of control, it quickly sped past its Maximum Operating Speed of 340 knots (391 mph) and Mach 0.81. At those near sonic speeds, a phenomenon called Mach Tuck occurs. The shockwaves forming on the wings cause the center of lift to shift rearward, creating a natural, aggressive pitch down tendency. At that point, the aerodynamic forces become too massive for any human or autopilot to manually overpower.
This extreme speed also puts a unique, brutal stress on the propulsion system. The Learjet 60 is powered by Pratt and Whitney PW305A turbofans, and during a severe overspeed dive, the engines face a massive influx of high velocity, high density air. This can cause the fan blades and compressors to operate way outside their aerodynamic design limits, leading to severe compressor stalls, engine surges, or even structural failure of the rotating components due to the sheer kinetic energy forcing its way through the core.
Down in the lower, denser air, traveling at speeds well over 400 knots (460 mph), the dynamic pressure and G-loads easily exceeded the airframe's certified limits of +3.0G and -1.0G. Between the violent atmospheric turbulence and the extreme overspeed flutter, the structural load simply became too much.
This brings us to the actual impact site and why it completely destroys the “missile” theory.
Look closely at the crash photo. If a missile had struck, you would see a single, uniform, circular crater. Instead, look at the geometry of the damage. You have a heavy main crater right next to an untouched, upright utility pole, but you also have a long, sharp, linear fracture tearing right through the asphalt extending away from it.
That linear slash is the smoking gun. It is the unmistakable footprint of an aircraft striking the ground in a near vertical, knife edge, right bank. In that position, the wings are oriented vertically to the ground. The individual wing panel on a Learjet 60 measures 18 feet 7 inches from the fuselage skin to the wingtip. The distance from that main crater to the edge of the linear pavement slash is approximately 15 to 20 feet.
What we are looking at is the exact spot where the right wing and its high strength winglet sliced into the road like a massive knife blade, while the fuselage and left wing impacted just feet away. At the exact same microsecond, the left wing, now towering nearly 20 feet straight up into the air, would have acted like a vertical guillotine, cleanly severing the parallel overhead power lines spanning 18 to 30 feet above the easement without ever knocking down the adjacent electrical pole.
A symmetrical cruise missile simply does not have the wingspan, the geometry, or the physical structure to leave a this type of a dual damage footprint.
When a combination of severe weather and aerodynamic forces interact upon an airframe this far outside its design envelope, the metal and the physics simply give way. The evidence on the ground doesn't lie:
This was a tragic high altitude loss of control, not a missile strike.
This also addresses the social media conspiracy as to why no large debris or recognizable wreckage seems to exist. People look at a smoking hole in the ground and immediately scream “cover up”. However, as someone who has worked on complex structures, I can tell you that the complete absence of large debris is exactly what happens when physics meets extreme kinetic energy.
The tracking data shows the jet plunging straight down at several hundred miles per hour. When a 58 foot long business jet made predominantly of lightweight aluminum alloy strikes solid earth and asphalt at near sonic speeds, the physics are absolute. The tremendous kinetic energy cannot just stop, it has to dissipate instantaneously. At those velocities, the energy transfer completely obliterates the airframe. The metal doesn't just bend, it fragments into thousands of tiny pieces, shatters, and is driven deep underground into the crater itself or consumed in the intense, fuel fed fireball.
The plane didn't vanish, and it wasn't a solid missile. It was an aluminum machine subjected to a cataclysmic high velocity impact that pulverized the structure. The lack of recognizable wreckage isn't a mystery, it is a textbook demonstration of high speed physics.
For those of you who have spent hours on social media, sharing the conspiracy theories of crackpots, find the courage and dignity to delete your posts.
