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I want to continue the conversation. I want to bring in Philip Rashear, retired Chief

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Warren Officer. He was a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot. And Ron Basman, he is a

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retired FAA controller for over 30 years. He has worked and has managed controllers at

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airports across the country. And also with us is Captain Richard Levy. He was a captain

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at American Airlines for 41 years. He's an aviation expert. Captain, I'm going to thank

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you all for coming on. Captain, I'll start with you. Have you ever piloted a Learjet

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55? Or what can you tell us about a Learjet 55 and how it might be different than operating

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another kind of aircraft? Hi, Jesse. Good evening. Our thoughts, of course, go out to the deceased,

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the family in the local neighborhoods. I flew large, very large transports for American Airlines. But

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this Lear 55, I have some knowledge about it. But I've watched these videos. And a couple of things

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I know right away is if you have an engine failure, any of these aircraft can fly single engine after

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takeoff. They're certified for that up to the grocery of the airplane. The airplane, if they

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lost an engine, I can eliminate that because the airplane went straight down. When the airplane,

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an aircraft takes off and comes down, of course, as you've already mentioned, is loaded with six or

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seven thousand pounds of jet fuel, there's the explosion. But more importantly, what would cause

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an aircraft to somewhat for the pilots to lose control of it? What comes to mind to me, again,

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no facts. I'm going to be very clear. Weight imbalance. On the Lear 55, weight imbalance is very

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critical. Not saying that's the fault. It's too early. I know you know that. But before takeoff,

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you have a captain and a first officer on this airplane, you have the captain, first officer,

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two doctors, the patient, and a family member. In any event, before takeoff, generally, but not

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always, the first officer does the pre-flight walk around and supervises the fueling. It could be the

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captain. We, of course, don't know that now. In any event, in the Lear 55, what I do know is weight

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and balance. That's the weight of the aircraft. And almost as important, if not more important,

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is the balance, what we call the center of gravity. And the fueling of the Lear 55 has to be done

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carefully so that the center of gravity is correct. If it was not done correct, hypothetically, since we

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don't know, and they take off with the airplane, the weight imbalance off, this is what happens to an

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airplane. You get it airborne because of thrust and what we call ground effect, the air flowing

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underneath the wings. You get it airborne and then you lose control of the airplane and it comes

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straight down. That may be one of the possibilities that they're looking at. Hopefully, again, we'll get

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more answers as the hour progresses. Ron, I want to go to you. Let's talk about air traffic control here.

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I would imagine, even for private aircraft like this, a MedVac, what is the relationship,

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the communication between air traffic control? Do they get some sort of priority if they're MedVac?

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And let me also ask you this. If there's reports about a call sign, there were call signs in terms

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of this was a MedVac. What information will we be gleaning from air traffic control at this point?

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Well, typically in a MedVac flight, they're going to get priority.

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And from a call sign standpoint, that's not necessarily something in a civilian aircraft

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that we would know right away. It could be operating under a typical, what we call N number,

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which is a U.S. registration number. And even though it is a medical flight and everything,

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unless it was put in the remarks of the flight plan and everything, a lot of times the controller

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wouldn't even know unless the pilot in command drew the attention to that status to the controllers.

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Philip, I wanted to ask you about this. We are getting early reports, conflicting reports again,

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this is so new, about whether any of the people on board would have had the ability to evacuate.

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Do you know anything about that, about whether there'd be an ability to evacuate this aircraft in any way?

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First of all, let me say that I'm a helicopter pilot by trade and career, but I will tell you that with that nose down attitude,

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I tend to think that that aircraft didn't have any hydraulic power because it came nose down.

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So to me, it looks like a loss of hydraulics. And with the nose down attitude that it had,

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I don't think there was any chance of anybody getting out of that aircraft where they had a parachute or not.

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It was in a straight nose down descent on fire.