Riff Jet

I reconstructed the decent from inside the cockpit of Learjet 60. Nine people lost their lives when a Learjet 60 crashed near West Palm Beach on November 1. Behind the footage and headlines are families whose lives have changed forever. Those identified by relatives and a former employer include Adam Robinson and Helen Sharp, their children Emma, 4, and Charlie, 2; passengers Rachael Reed, Charmi Fehr, and Anita Maria Cetina; Captain Jeff Gregory; and 20-year-old copilot Nathalia Gadelha Filgueiras. They were traveling from Austin to the Bahamas. [ABC News](abcnews.com/US/learjet-bre…) The descent was extraordinarily rapid. Flightradar24 reported a vertical descent rate exceeding **32,000 feet per minute** at one point—equivalent to approximately **533 feet per second, or 364 mph downward**. That measures the vertical component of motion; it does not establish the jet’s impact speed or its speed throughout the descent. [Flightradar24](flightradar24.com/blog/fligh……) For perspective, an object released from rest at 35,000 feet would take roughly **47 seconds** to reach the ground in an idealized calculation with constant gravity and no air resistance. That is a physics illustration, not an estimate of this aircraft’s actual descent time. An aircraft’s motion also involves aerodynamic forces, initial velocity, and its changing attitude. Describing this as “free fall” cannot tell us what those aboard experienced. [NASA’s explanation of falling objects](www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-……) The NTSB investigation remains ongoing. The families deserve answers grounded in the evidence, and all nine people deserve to be remembered as individuals. [NTSB investigation](ntsb.gov/investigations…)

Two of them will be remembered for alarming incompetence

A man tried to punch a Navy soldier, who managed to dodge the blow, and responded with a reply that the man will never forget for the rest of his life.

The Boss Girl Pilot content trend of filming in the cockpit is reckless. It prioritizes views over sterile-cockpit discipline and costs lives. Airlines and regulators should ban it.

That image has to be photoshopped to the hilt because Faruqi normally resembles Jabba the Hutt.