Associated Press
A business jet flying over New England violently pitched upward then downward, fatally injuring a passenger, after pilots responding to automated cockpit warnings switched off a system that helps keep the aircraft stable, U.S. transportation investigators reported Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board didn't reach any conclusions in its preliminary report on the main cause of the deadly March 3 accident, but it described a series of things that went wrong before and after the plane swooped out of control. Confronted with several alerts in the cockpit of the Bombardier jet, pilots followed a checklist and turned off a switch that “trims” or adjusts the stabilizer on the plane’s tail, the report said.