Posted on 11/02/2026 6:34:44 PM PST by USA-FRANCE
5,186,004 views Premiered 20 hours ago On Sunday afternoon at 12:51 PM, November 1, 2026, a horrific aviation tragedy unfolded in South Florida when a Learjet 60 business jet nose-dived directly into a busy Military Trail near 10 Ave North, in Greenacres, near West Palm Beach, FL.
The aircraft erupted into a massive fireball upon impact at the intersection, tragically killing all nine people on board. The private flight (N722BD) departed from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) in Texas at 10:37 AM CST and was on a holiday transit to North Eleuthera Airport (ELH) in the Bahamas.
While cruising peacefully at 41,000 feet, the aircraft descended to 35,000 feet near Naples to avoid severe turbulence. Moments later, the flight path intersected a violent, moisture-heavy thunderstorm cell. In a chilling final transmission to Air Traffic Control, the pilot reported an outside air temperature of -47°C, stating they were managing structural icing but had just encountered a dense wave of sudden precipitation.
The crew requested an emergency climb to 37,000 feet to escape the weather trap, but the aircraft struggled upward only 450 feet before suffering a complete, catastrophic aerodynamic stall. The jet violently rolled into a 60-degree bank, dropping out of the sky in a near-vertical plunge with terminal descent rates exceeding 32,000 feet per minute.
In this video, we perform a deep forensic breakdown of flight N722BD. We analyze the final Air Traffic Control (ATC) audio logs, break down the localized weather physics of high-altitude tropical storms, and map the minute-by-minute Flightradar24 ADS-B telemetry data.
We also examine local dashcam videos and eyewitness security footage to evaluate the leading NTSB investigation theories—including the critical aerodynamic differences between a Learjet 60 and a commercial airliner, and whether the aircraft suffered a mid-air structural tail failure before impact.
What a horrible event.
Airlines try to give thunderstorms a wide birth (20 miles or more). This Learjet flew straight through a rapidly developing thundercloud. It was tempting fate. Why didn’t they divert? That is the question that will have to be answered.
ONE PIC SHOWS THE TAIL OF THE PLANE IS GONE...
The animations I saw today snowed that they went around the huge main storm to the north, but the highly localized cell that they flew into formed and rose very quickly.
APPARENTLY SO IS YOUR CAPSLOCK KEY.
FWIW
-47°C = -54°F
32,000 ft. per minute = 363 mph
I think they lost their horizontal stabilizer, and therefore pitch authority. The plane turned into a jet powered lawn dart.
-PJ
As Jeff Ostroff points out in his pinned comment at the top of the comments on YouTube, the view that the tail is missing is due to the low resolution of the dash cam. If you pause the video at 5:17 and move it frame by frame to 5:18, you can see the tail intact.
The max cruise speed is 536 mph, and of course with a margin of safety on top of that, the speed would not tear off the tail.
The cell they ran through was hot localized and rapidly developing, which would have been consist with the high degree of convection and turbulence they were dealing with
Looks like they got caught in.a clear path on the Swiss cheese model
Sometimes bad things happen . The one thing I can fault them on is their lack of decision to divert to an alternative airport. A lot of pilots of much larger and capable airline planes made that decision
Corporate jet pilots are under a lot of pressure to get their passengers to their destinations so diverting is a hard choice
Oops ... lmao.
I was surprised that the figure for descent was only 363 mph. I don’t know about Lear jets but a commercial heavy usually flies faster than that horizontally in normal flight.
I expected a near vertical uncontrolled dive to be much faster. Videos of it looked like a missile coming in.
Yes.
She once said being in her 80s it was easier for her to see if she typed in all caps
Hopefully, so quickly that those on board did NOT have time to fully realize what was happening!:(
Hopefully, so quickly that those on board did NOT have time to fully realize what was happening!:(
A cell is usually no more than five miles in diameter. ATC can give you vectors to route you around them.
Adiabatic expension = approx 3f for each 1000' above MSL. 37,000 = 90 degrees colder than the ground. That means the air at that altitude was 20 below zero. Warm moisture laden air is in the updraft. More like a giant vertical Slurpee of rain, sleet, and then rock size hail.
Part 135 air taxi regulations the charter operates under does not permit flying into or anywhere near thunderstorms. Each company has its own manual and flight director. The manuals can vary on policy here and there, but not on flying into thunderstorms.
There is a saying that the great killer of private pilots and their passengers is “gotta-get-there-itis.”
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