Cockpit recorder wasnt working on medevac flight that crashed in Philadelphia and likely hadnt for years: NTSB

The cockpit voice recorder wasn’t working on the doomed medical transport flight that crashed in a Philadelphia neighborhood, killing seven, in January — and likely hadn’t been for years, federal officials revealed Thursday.The startling disclosure that could hamper efforts to figure out why the medevac plane went down comes as the National Transportation Safety Board also revealed no distress calls were made before the catastrophic crash on Jan.31.All six people on the Learjet 55 were killed — including 11-year-old Valentina Guzman Murillo — while one person was killed on the ground inside his car.

 The youngster received “live-saving” medical treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia hospital and was on her way back home to Mexico with her mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna, when the plane crashed a minute after takeoff.The recorder was dug up from 8 feet underground and was badly damaged, but the agency cleaned it up and did the necessary repairs.Officials then realized there was no audio of the flight.Former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said the lack of a cockpit recording was “disturbing.”“That and the whole flight data recorder are important to find out what went wrong so it can be prevented in the future,” he added.“It’s a significant loss of important information that should have been there.”The lack of distress calls can be more easily explained.Hall said the plane was dropping so quickly that there was no time to contact the air control tower.Investigators did recover an Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System that might have flight data to possibly shed light on the tragic wreck.

The computer was shipped to the manufacturer for evaluation — which is ongoing — and to determine if any information can be pulled from it, the NTSB said.At least two dozen people were also injured on the ground, including a heroic 10-year-old boy trying to protect his little sister.The disaster in Philadelphia is part of a scary rash of plane crashe...