On October 25, , a chartered Learjet 35 business jet was scheduled to fly from Orlando , Florida, to Dallas , Texas. Early in the flight, the aircraft, which was climbing to its assigned altitude on autopilot , quickly lost cabin pressure and all six on board were incapacitated due to hypoxia βa lack of oxygen. The plane ran out of fuel over South Dakota and crashed into a field near Aberdeen after an uncontrolled descent.
On board were two pilots and four passengers. At Z EDT , the pilot acknowledged the clearance by stating, "three nine zero bravo alpha. The F pilot made a visual inspection of the Lear, finding no visible damage to the airplane. Both engines were running, and the plane's red rotating anti-collision beacon was on standard operation for aircraft in flight. The fighter pilot could not see inside the passenger section of the airplane because the windows seemed to be dark.
Further, he stated that the entire right cockpit windshield was opaque , as if condensation or ice covered the inside. He also indicated that the left cockpit windshield was opaque, although several sections of the center of the windshield seemed to be only thinly covered by condensation or ice; a small rectangular section of the windshield was clear, with only a small section of the glare shield visible through this area. He did not see any flight control movement.
The TULSA 13 lead pilot reported that he could not see any movement in the cockpit, that the windshield was dark and that he could not tell if the windshield was iced. A few minutes later, a TULSA 13 pilot reported, "We're not seeing anything inside, could be just a dark cockpit though The aircraft reached a maximum altitude of 48, feet 9.
It's looking like the cockpit window is iced over and there's no displacement in any of the control surfaces as far as the ailerons or trims. There was some speculation in the media that military jets were prepared to shoot down the Lear if it threatened to crash in a heavily populated area.
