A TikTok user says he drove over debris from the crashed Learjet 60 in his work parking lot in West Palm Beach. Now he has shared photos of what he believes is part of the plane’s tail.
A man in West Palm Beach says he drove over a piece of the crashed Learjet 60 on his way into work, and he has shared photos on TikTok of what he believes is part of the plane’s tail. The private jet crashed in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday, November 1, killing all nine people on board.
The victims were captain Jeff Gregory, 55, co-pilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras, 20, tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, 44, his wife Helen Sharp, their children Emma, four, and Charlie, two, their nanny Anita Maria Ramirez Cetina, and family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr.
He thought it was just scrap metal
The man, who posts on TikTok as MoversToTrust, says he found the debris in his work parking lot, around a mile from the crash site.
At first, he didn’t think much of it. “I picked it up and put it on the grass and I took a double look at it… I realized it was part of the plane part, so then I called non-emergency sheriffs,” he explained.
He also posted several close-up photos of the piece, some showing handwritten serial numbers. In his video, he took aim at the online rumors that followed the crash.
“To all those people that thought that there was some kind of missile that crashed in West Palm Beach, I pulled in to work this morning and this is a tail fin,” he said.
“And if you actually see the videos, you see it going into a spiral, and without the tail fin that’s exactly what happens.” As of now it has not been confirmed which part of the plane he found.
Investigators found parts of the tail miles away
Dashcam videos of the crash have led to a lot of debate online about whether part of the tail came off before the jet hit the ground. According to the NTSB, it did. On November 3, board member Thomas Chapman said most of the jet’s left elevator had been found in three pieces.
“The majority of the aircraft’s left elevator was located in three pieces within a range of about 1.3 to 3.8 mi. from the accident site,” he told reporters.
“It tells us that at least some components, important pieces of the aircraft, separated before the impact.” The elevator is the movable part at the back of the tail that controls whether the plane’s nose points up or down.
Still, Chapman said it’s too early to say whether losing it caused the crash or happened because of it.
“What that means exactly in terms of what caused the aircraft to lose control and whether the loss of this piece was a result of the forces on the aircraft, we don’t know yet,” he said.
The 22-year-old jet was operated by Aurora Aviation under the name Upper Jets. It was flying from Austin, Texas, to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Investigators are looking at the weather, turbulence and possible structural failure. They also plan to dig out the crater left by the impact.
“We expect to find critical airplane components within the crater,” Chapman said.
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