Pieces of the tail of the Learjet that crashed in Florida have been found miles away from the crash site, which suggests that part of the aircraft broke off before it hit the ground, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Federal investigators found three pieces of the jet's left elevator between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the impact site in Palm Beach County, Florida, NTSB member Thomas Champman said Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The plane's elevator controls the aircraft's pitch up or down, and without it, an aircraft cannot recover from a nose dive.
Chapman said that the discovery of the pieces suggests that these key parts separated from the aircraft prior to impact.
"What that means exactly in terms of what caused the aircraft to lose control, or whether the loss of this piece was a result of the forces on the aircraft, we don't know yet," he said.
The Learjet 60 departed from Austin, Texas, and was heading for Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas when it crashed Sunday, killing all nine people on board.
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