Business jet that crashed in Michigan was flown after pilots chose not to wait for a test pilot, NTSB says

By Pete Muntean, Aaron Cooper, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The pilots in a deadly business jet crash in Michigan were performing a test flight themselves, following repairs, instead of waiting for a test pilot, when the aircraft plunged into woods near Lansing, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report Thursday.

The Mexican-registered Raytheon Hawker 800XP plane crashed in Bath Township, Michigan on October 16, killing the three people onboard.

Before the crash, the plane had been parked in Battle Creek, Michigan, for maintenance for seven months, according to the NTSB.

The work included removing part of the wing, which requires pilots to test fly it in an aerodynamic stall— a maneuver in which the plane loses lift — before it could be returned to service.

When the crew arrived to pick up the plane, the company that did the maintenance work, Duncan Aviation, suggested they hire a test pilot to perform the stall test, the report noted.

“The captain was provided with a list of experienced test pilots, for hire, to perform the post-maintenance stall test flight,” the NTSB said in the report. “However, after being unable to coordinate the stall test flight with a test pilot, the flight crew elected to perform the post-maintenance stall test themselves.”

Publicly available flight tracking data from ADS-B Exchange shows the plane suddenly descending — at times reaching a blistering 24,000 feet per minute. Bystanders captured video showing the jet corkscrewing toward the ground, then disappearing behind homes before a large black plume of smoke appears.

Two pilots working for the jet owner and their maintenance representative were killed in the crash.

The NTSB noted that the pilot’s manual for the plane said pilots conducting stall tests “should have prior experience in performing stall in the Hawker and must be prepared for unacceptable stall behavior at any point.”

Investigators continue to work to determine the cause of the crash, and will make a final determination in about a year.

At least three other incidents with business jets undergoing stall tests have been investigated by the NTSB, the report noted.

In February 2024, two pilots of a similar Hawker business jet were killed in Utah when performing an after-maintenance test flight in which they had to test the plane’s system that warns of an aerodynamic stall.

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