The pilots of a small jet that crashed in Northwest Georgia Feb. 8, killing a Flowery Branch High School graduate and three others, reported problems with the plane shortly before the crash.
The plane was headed to Nashville, Tenn. when it went down in Gordon County.
According to a preliminary report on the incident by the National Transportation Safety Board, not long after take-off from Falcon Field in Atlanta, one of the pilots told an air traffic controller that they "had a problem with the autopilot." Shortly after that, the pilots told controllers they were still having trouble with the autopilot and also a problem had developed with a flight instrument that indicates the aircraft's position relative to the horizon.
Crews located the main wreckage of the plane near Calhoun hours later upside down and partially submerged in a creek, according to the report. Several parts of the plane were in the surrounding woods and not near the main wreckage, “consistent with an inflight breakup,” the investigators said.
Killed were Savannah Sims, 23, Atlanta, a 2015 graduate of Flowery Branch High School; her boyfriend, Morgan Smith; Smith's father, who was the pilot; and, a co-pilot.
Click here for earlier story.
The full NTSB report can be read here.
