A routine take-off turned into chaos in the middle of a brutal winter storm.
How much can pilots really see when snow, wind and darkness collide?
Seven people were killed after a private jet crashed while departing Bangor International Airport in Maine on Sunday night.
One crew member was seriously injured.
The Bombardier Challenger 600, carrying eight people, went down around 7:45pm local time.
It quickly burst into flames, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.
The timing couldn’t have been worse.A powerful winter storm was sweeping across large parts of the US, grounding flights.
It was cutting power to hundreds of thousands and making flying increasingly risky.
Pilots at Bangor had reportedly been struggling with visibility moments before the crash.
“Conditions were challenging, with reduced visibility and heavy snowfall,” an aviation source familiar with the situation told US media.
Crash Under Investigation
In a brief update, the FAA said the aircraft crashed “under unknown circumstances” shortly after take-off, coming to rest upside down on the runway.
Dramatic images showed smoke billowing into the night as emergency crews rushed in.
The airport was immediately closed, and the victims’ identities have not yet been released.
Public records indicate the jet was registered to a Houston-based law firm.
The crash added to nationwide travel misery, with more than 11,000 flights cancelled.
Thousands more delayed as snow piled up from Maine to Washington, DC.
As investigators piece together what went wrong, the storm continues to rage on.
A grim reminder that even the most routine journeys can change in an instant.
