What happened:
Singer Jenni Rivera was killed was killed in a plane crash in Northern Mexico. The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a team to help investigate what caused the Lear Jet carrying the singer, her publicist, makeup artist, two friends and two pilots to crash near the town of Iturbide in the Sierra Madre Oriental in Nuevo Leon state.
According to a report on WVIR, the Mexican Transportation and Communications Minister stated the impact of the crash was so powerful that the remains of the plane have been scattered over an area of 250 to 300 meters. “There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human” in the wreckage, he said.
Confirmation that Rivera was on the plane came from a mangled California driver’s license with her name and photo that was found at the scene. The jet is registered to Starwood Management of Las Vegas, Nevada, according to FAA records. It was built in 1969 and had a current registration through 2015.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the plane was substantially damaged in 2005. While trying to land at an airport in Texas, the plane hit directional control and hit a runway distance marker. There were four aboard but no injuries were reported.
The Virginia Injury Lawyer Perspective:
There have been a few high profile plane crashes involving Learjets. In 1999, pro-golfer Payne Stewart and five others were killed when the Learjet they were in crashed in South Dakota after it lost cabin pressure. Former Blink 182 drummer survived a 2008 South Carolina Learjet that killed four other people. Also in 2008, a Learjet crashed into an exclusive neighborhood in Mexico City, killing a high-ranking government official, as well as eight people in the plane and five others who were on the ground.
Our condolences go to the Rivera family to lose such a vibrant talented woman. Hopefully, the investigators will be able to determine what caused this tragic crash and if it could have been prevented.
Iturbide, Mexico