Learjet’s Wreckage Sifted for Small Clues to Stewart Tragedy

Investigators picked through Payne Stewart’s shattered Learjet on Thursday for valves and other small parts that might help answer whether the golfer’s flight was doomed by a loss of oxygen in the cabin.

The National Transportation Safety Board also said it is looking closely at three similar Learjet crashes over the last two decades.

Still, investigators are concerned that the cause of Stewart’s crash will never be known because the plane and the bodies were so severely damaged, according to a high-level government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to tell what happened from what we dug out of that hole,” the official said.

Stewart and five other people died Monday aboard the plane, which crashed into a cow pasture near Mina four hours after it left Orlando, Fla., for Texas. The plane flew 1,400 miles across the country, apparently on autopilot, before it ran out of fuel.

Government officials and pilots have said one possible explanation is that the jet lost cabin pressure soon after taking off, causing everyone on board to die or lose consciousness.

Bob Benzon, who is in charge of the investigation for the NTSB, said crews were particularly interested in finding valves, parts of the doors and windows and other components that help seal the cabin. All of what remained of the wreckage had been recovered and gathered in a hangar by Thursday afternoon.

The NTSB also is reviewing three Learjet accidents that appear similar to Monday’s crash.

In 1990, a Learjet crashed in Ohio soon after taking off from Michigan for Kentucky. The reasons remain unknown.

A Learjet took off in Europe in 1983 and flew 1,600 miles before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean; the plane was never found.

In 1988, two Americans died when their Learjet from Tennessee inexplicably bypassed its Texas destination and crashed into a mountain in Mexico.