Tragic plane crash leaves six dead as air traffic control audio is released
A tragic incident has left six dead as dangerous weather caused a plane to crash at Bangor International Airport, with air traffic control audio revealing the chain of events that led to the disaster.
Strong weather affecting large parts of the United States caused thousands of flights to be cancelled or delayed over the weekend, yet one private jet's attempted take off ended in tragic circumstances, with a fatal crash leaving six dead.
The plane itself was a Bombardier Challenger 600, taking off from Bangor International Airport in Maine at around 19:45 local time on Sunday, January 25, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Reports from the FAA has indicated that the private jet, which was was reportedly only carrying six individuals, had "crashed under unknown circumstances on departure," adding that it "came to a rest inverted and caught fire."
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All passengers on board the Challenger 600 flight reportedly died in the crash, although officials have not released the identities of the victims as of yet with the plane registered to a law firm in Houston, Texas.
A new statement from local authorities has outlined that "according to the flight manifest there were six people on the flight. No one from the incident was transported to the hospital, and all on the flight are presumed to be deceased.
"The identities of the people on the flight are not being released publicly at this time, pending positive identification," the statement continues.
Now, as reported by the BBC, audio capture of air traffic control has been revealed, as LiveATC.com has published the conversations that took place between the controllers and pilot of the plane as the crash happened.
The audio reveals general conversations regarding poor visibility as a result of the storm, although the nature of air traffic control makes it difficult to discern whether the Bombardier Challenger 600 was heard in this instance.
Two pilots were specifically heard discussing their concerns with the conditions that they were facing, with one in control of an Allegiant Air Flight 976 flight noting that their plane had failed a pre-takeoff check due to snow and ice present on the wings.
Moments after this controllers can be heard discussing a "passenger aircraft upside down," with smoke and flames able to be seen in images from the Bangor International Airport runway after the plane in question took off.
The storm is expected to continue to ravage throughout the early days of this week with both low temperatures and extreme weather, and the National Weather Service has predicted between 10 and 16 inches of snow in the Bangor area for Tuesday.