A luggage door may have opened after takeoff on a charter jet that crashed and killed two pilots, federal investigators said.
The twin-engine Cessna Citation 525 crashed after taking off from Van Nuys Airport on Jan. 12, killing the only people aboard, Frank Kratzer, 72, and Fernando Miguel Fernandez, 49.
Witnesses reported seeing the front baggage door closed when it took off, but open when the plane was about 200 feet in the air, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
"Some witnesses thought that they saw dark objects fall from the airplane, and enter the left engine," although nothing was later found on the ground, the report said.
The pilot radioed the airport tower before the crash, said he wanted to return and was granted permission to land, the NTSB report said. The plane's wings rocked before it made a hard right turn and crashed, cutting power lines and slamming through fences and walls.
The co-pilot had been seen loading the baggage compartment, but nobody saw him latch or lock it, the report said. Investigators found the door's key mechanism in the unlocked position, the report said.
A warning light would have notified the pilot that a door was unlocked, the report said.
The report contained no names and did not identify which man was the pilot and which was the co-pilot. It summarized information about the crash without speculating on a cause.
"We probably won't have a probable cause for about a year," NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said from Washington, D.C.
Investigators said there have been previous reports of a front baggage door "popping open" on different models of the Citation, but the crews landed safely.
There have been only a handful of such incidents, Cessna spokesman Robert Stangarone said.
"We certainly don't believe there's an airplane issue," he said. "It's up to the pilot to secure all the doors, and that's all according to the flight manual."
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