À year ago on this date, a Learjet 75 was being operated on an FAA Part 91: General aviation - Personal flight from Atlanta-Fulton County Airport (Georgia, USA) to Morristown Municipal Airport (New Jersey, USA). With a crew of two and two passengers, the flight had progressed without issue and was cleared by ATC for a visual approach to runway 23 at Morristown.
The fuselage in its final position, (Source; baaa-acro.com © Unknown) The weather was calm with VMC conditions;
Wind - 320º at 6 knots, gusting 14 knots
Clouds - Few at 25.000 ft AGL
Visibility - 10 miles
Temp. - 7ºC
Dewpt, - -5ºC
Altimeter - 30.11 inHg
The resulting crosswind component was assessed by the crew and was within the aircraft's operating limits. As the aircraft touched down the reversers were deployed and the aircraft turned sharply to the right normal crosswind corrections were made by the crew, but had no effect. the aircraft departed the runway.
Once off the runway, the entire wing structure separated from the fuselage, which continued over a distance of ~100 feet (~30 meters) before coming to a rest. The crew shut the aircraft down and evacuated the aircraft via the main cabin door with one of the passengers, while the second passenger evacuated the aircraft via the emergency exit.
Accident side overview (Source; baaa-acro.com © Unknown) An investigation was launched by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Besides interviewing the crew and passengers radar data and surveillance video recordings were examined. From this examination, it became apparent that the airplane crossed the runway threshold at about 120 knots groundspeed. About 9 seconds into the landing roll, the airplane turned sharply to its right. The airplane departed the runway, its left wingtip struck the ground, the entire wing structure (left wing/right wing/wing box) separated from the airplane
as one assembly, and the fuselage continued a short distance before it came to rest upright. The thrust reversers on each engine were deployed, and their positions were approximately matched. Skid marks on the runway traced back along the paved surface from the ground scars that marked the airplane’s runway excursion. The skid marks appeared about 1,200 feet beyond the approach end of runway 23 and arced to the airplane’s right about 560 ft before the skid marks transitioned to tracks in the grass apron. The tracks continued an estimated 100 ft farther down the landing direction and about 90 ft to the right of the paved surface to where the main wing assembly came to rest. The fuselage rested
upright, about 120 feet beyond the point the airplane departed the paved surface, and 110 ft right of the paved surface. The NTSB investigation continues at the time of writing this blog, the preliminary report (which served as a source for this blog) by the NTSB can be accessed by clicking on the .pdf file below;