Air Traffic Control lost communication with crashed Cessna 1.5 hours before fighter jets scrambled to intercept

AUGUSTA COUNTY, Va. — Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board say they'll spend three to four days in the mountains of Virginia, picking up the pieces of a Cessna 560 aircraft that crashed on Sunday afternoon in Augusta County. The pilot and three passengers onboard all died. 

A spokeswoman from the NTSB says around 1:13 p.m., the plane took off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tennessee. The airplane was flying to Long Island MacArthur Airport. 

Air Traffic Control (ATC) lost communication with the airplane during its ascent. The last ATC communication attempt with the airplane was at approximately 1:28 p.m. At that time, the airplane was at 31,000 feet. 

The Cessna made it to Ronkokoma, New York at 2:32 p.m., which is when NTSB says the pilot became unresponsive. The plane then turned around and headed south, entering restricted airspace in D.C. around 3 p.m.

The airplane eventually climbed to 34,000 feet, where it remained for the rest of the flight until 3:23 p.m. when it began to descend. The airplane crashed at approximately 3:32 p.m. But not before it was intercepted by two F-16 fighter jets sent from Joint Base Andrews. 

NTSB investigators arrived to the scene of the crash on Monday morning to examine the highly fragmented wreckage and document the scene. Investigators had to hike to the location due to the heavily wooded and rural terrain. The wreckage will eventually be moved to a secure facility in Delaware, according to NTSB Senior Air Safety Investigator Adam Gerhardt.

Since 2014, the federal government requires flight data recorders, better known as black boxes, on aircrafts that have at least 20 passenger seats. While this Cessna plane did not meet that requirement, Gerhardt says there could still be one on board.

"This airplane was not required to have a black box or a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder," he said. "But we’ll be looking at whether or not that equipment may have been installed. Right now it’s still to be determined."

Gerhardt is hoping that a recorder, along with the investigation, will answer a lot of questions.

"I want to stress that we are here not only to figure out what happened, but why this happened to prevent future accidents from happening again," he said.

NTSB officials say a final report could take one to two years to be released.