Four Dead In Learjet 60 Takeoff Downing

Survivors Include Former Blink-182 Drummer
Details are sketchy about the circumstances surrounding the Friday night downing of a Learjet 60 business jet on takeoff from Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE) in South Carolina... but we do know that both of the business jet's pilots were lost in the accident, as were two of the four passengers onboard.

The Learjet 60 (N999LJ) crashed on take-off at 2353 EDT, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane was registered to Inter Travel and Services of Irvine, CA, and was approximately two years old.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told The Associated Press controllers saw sparks as the plane rolled down the runway. The aircraft then departed the runway, and came to rest was departing shortly before midnight Friday when air traffic controllers reporting seeing sparks. She says the plane went off the runway and crashed into a berm across the road from the airport.

There is no record of an IFR flight plan filed for the accident flight. Bergen said the Lear's destination was Van Nuys, CA.

The NTSB has dispatched a Go Team to investigate the accident. NTSB Senior Air Safety Investigator Bill English has been designated as Investigator-in-Charge. Board Member Debbie Hersman will serve as principal spokesman during the on-scene investigation; Hersman fulfilled the same role during the investigation of the August 2006 crash of Comair 191 from Lexington, KY.

The Safety Board's 11-member team includes two representatives from the Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance. Peter Knudson will accompany the team as press officer.

Both of the survivors were admitted to an Augusta, GA hospital with critical burns. MSNBC reports one of the survivors is Travis Barker, the former drummer for the rock band Blink 182. The second survivor has been tentatively identified as Adam Michael Goldstein, a popular club performer known as DJ AM.

Both were believed to have performed Friday night at a downtown music event in South Carolina. The identities of the four others onboard have not been release as of yet.

According to online flight tracking service FlightAware.com, the Lear arrived at CAE from Teterboro, NJ less than an hour before the accident. Records show that on September 12, the Lear diverted back to TEB shortly after takeoff, originally bound for to Tulsa, OK.

The plane's next listed flight was on Thursday, a 47-minute circuit around Teterboro. That flight immediately preceded Friday's trip to CAE.

ANN will update this story as more information becomes available.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.ntsb.govaero-news.net

Fonte: Flight Safety Information 23/09/2008.