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Private jet crashes in US; at least 7 dead in Bangor, Maine
The Bombardier Challenger 600 carrying eight people crashed on takeoff Sunday night as New England and much of the country grappled with a massive winter storm.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday that a private jet crash in a snowstorm in Maine resulted in at least 7 deaths, with 1 person seriously injured, AP reported.
According to the FAA, seven people were killed, and a crew member survived with serious injuries when a private business jet crashed in a snowstorm at Maine’s Bangor International Airport.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 carrying eight people crashed on takeoff Sunday night as New England and much of the country grappled with a massive winter storm. It 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-around cabin” and remains a popular charter option, according to aircharterservice.com.
The airport, about 200 miles north of Boston, shut down after the crash. Snowfall was heavy at the time, as it was across much of the country. Bangor was under a winter storm warning on Sunday.
“Certainly, the weather is challenging,” Bangor Police Sgt. Jeremy Brock told NBC affiliate WCSH, at the time of the crash
Allegiant, American, Breeze, Delta and United Airlines all fly out of the affected airport, which is about 300 miles east of Montréal–Trudeau International Airport and nearly 240 miles north of Boston Logan Airport.
An audio recording of air traffic controllers, reported by AP, included 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, airport director Jose Saavedra said.
Crash amid massive US winter storm
The crash comes amid a massive winter storm in the US that dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the eastern half of the country throughout the weekend, 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 cancelled on 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.
