Tail piece fell miles from Florida jet crash site, NTSB says

Palm Beach County residents near Palm Springs are waiting on federal investigators after a private jet crashed into a residential area on Sunday, killing all nine people aboard. The aircraft was flying from Texas to the Bahamas when it went down, and hundreds of nearby residents evacuated. National Transportation Safety Board Member Tom Chapman briefed reporters Tuesday from the scene.

Chapman said investigators located pieces of the plane's left elevator on Monday. The fragments landed between 1.3 and 3.8 miles from the main crash site. The NTSB describes the elevator as a tail control surface that sets an airplane's pitch. Chapman said the distance makes it implausible that the surface broke on ground impact.

Storms moved through the area Monday and slowed early work at the site. Chapman said severe weather remains a primary focus of the investigation. Investigators are weighing two scenarios: whether the elevator's separation caused the plane to lose control, or whether forces in flight tore the structure away.

Local public works crews removed a utility pole Tuesday to let teams reach and secure the crater left by the impact. Chapman said removing water from the crater allows recovery of components buried inside. "We expect to find critical airplane components within the crater," Chapman said. "I feel confident that they are going to find what they need to put together what happened and why it happened."

Chapman said there is no evidence connecting the crash to its proximity to Mar-a-Lago. He also said Tuesday was the agency's final on-site briefing, with future updates posted online and through official media relations channels. Investigators have not disclosed where searchers recovered the elevator pieces, and most collected debris consists of very small fragments that remain unidentified until examined. Officials have not established the final cause or confirmed what other evidence remains submerged in the crater.