No problems reported in last minute before deadly jet crash

A plane that crashed near a small airport outside New York City, killing two crew members, didn’t report any problems to air traffic controllers a minute before it nosedived, a federal investigator said Tuesday.

The Learjet crash Monday afternoon in an industrial area near Teterboro Airport damaged two buildings and caused a fire that burned 16 cars in a parking lot. No one on the ground was injured.

Jim Silliman, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said Tuesday it appeared from air traffic control audio tapes that the plane’s approach was going smoothly right before the crash.

“It seemed they were talking to the aircraft while it was on approach and the pilots didn’t give any sense of an extreme situation or identify any problem with the aircraft at the time,” he said.

Silliman said the voice recorder had been recovered and was being shipped to NTSB headquarters. He said the flight wasn’t required to have a data recorder.

He said the wind at the time of the crash “was a concern.” Winds were gusting at more than 30 mph and controllers would have tried to have the plane head into the wind to avoid crosswind.

The plane was listing to the right with its nose down at the time of impact, indicating it was out of control, Silliman added.