Former Obama official died on private jet owned by her husband’s firm due to malfunction
A former Obama and Clinton official who died on a private jet owned by her husband’s company died after controls failed, not because of turbulence.
Dana J. Hyde, a former student of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks in the US, better known as the 9/11 Commission, was killed in the shocking incident on March 3.
Hyde, 55, was one of five aboard the DC-bound plane, which was forced to divert to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. Others on board included Hyde’s husband, Jonathan Chambers, and their son, as well as two crew members, all of whom survived.
The National Transportation Safety Board did not reach any conclusions in its preliminary report about the root cause of the deadly crash on March 3, but it did describe a number of things that went wrong before and after the plane went out of control.
Faced with several alerts in the cockpit of the Bombardier plane, the pilots followed a checklist and turned off a switch that ‘trims’ or adjusts the stabilizer in the tail of the plane, according to the report.
Dana J. Hyde (pictured right), a former Clinton and Obama official who was killed in a private jet did so because that plane, owned by her husband’s company, had a control malfunction and not, as originally thought, due to turbulence.
The plane’s nose then rose upward, subjecting the people inside to forces roughly four times the force of gravity, then pointed downward before swinging upward again before the pilots could regain control. control, according to the report.
The family was reportedly returning to their home in Cabin John, Maryland, when the plane began to rise steeply after multiple cockpit alerts.
The pilots told investigators they found no turbulence, as the NTSB had said in an initial assessment the day after the incident.
The plane was owned by Conexon LLC, a rural broadband company in which Chambers is a partner.
The company provides high-speed internet service to rural communities. Before joining the company, Chambers was also a prominent figure in Washington, serving in the US Senate as a Republican staff director and later as head of the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning.
The trim system on the Bombardier Challenger 300 twin-engine plane was the subject of a Federal Aviation Administration mandate last year for pilots to perform additional safety checks before flights.
Bombardier did not directly respond to the content of the report, saying in a statement that it was “studying it carefully.” In an earlier statement, the Canadian manufacturer said it stood behind its Challenger 300 planes and their airworthiness.
“We will continue to support and provide full assistance to all authorities as needed,” the company said on Friday.
Meanwhile, Hyde worked as a part-time consultant for the DC-based think tank Aspen Institute, a gathering of leaders from various industries striving to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.
In the role, Hyde served as co-chair of the Aspen Partnership for an Inclusive Economy (APIE), which, according to the agency’s website, “works to close the gaps between the people who deserve more inclusive systems and standards and the people who set them.’
The plane was traveling from Keene, New Hampshire, before diverting to Bradley, where the high-profile attorney was rushed to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Authorities said Hyde was immediately transported to Saint Francis Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut, after the plane landed Friday, where she was pronounced dead that night.
No one else was injured in the incident, and officials confirmed that both Chambers and one of the couple’s two children were on board at the time of the emergency landing.
Also an alumnus of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, Dana J. Hyde’s name was released by Connecticut police investigating the incident on Monday.
Others aboard the plane (pictured here Friday after the emergency landing) included Hyde’s husband and son, as well as two crew members, all of whom survived. The family was heading back to their home in Cabin John, Maryland, when turbulence unexpectedly struck
The private jet belonged to an internet company headed by Hyde’s husband, Jonathan Chambers, who also previously worked as a White House aide and was on board the flight with one of the couple’s children. Both survived without injury, authorities said.
Hyde, once a prominent figure in Washington, is seen signing the $375 million Benin Power Compact in September 2015 in the presence of Benin’s President Thomas Boni Yayi and then Vice President Joe Biden.
“We can confirm that the aircraft was owned by Conexon and that Dana Hyde was the wife of Conexon partner Jonathan Chambers,” company spokeswoman Abby Carere said in an email Monday.
‘Jonathan and his son were also on the flight and were not injured in the incident. ‘
According to Flight Aware data, the plane made the reverse trip from Leesburg to Dillant/Hopkins on Thursday at approximately 3:49 p.m.
At that time, Connecticut State Troopers responded to a call for medical assistance centered on the Internet service provider’s private plane, with Hyde subsequently transported to the area hospital by ambulance.
Bradley International is about 70 miles from Keene, New Hampshire, where the plane initially took off.
On 03/03/2023, at approximately 3:49 pm, Connecticut State Police responded to a call for medical assistance at Bradley International Airport. A patient was subsequently transported to an area hospital by ambulance,” a Connecticut State Police spokesperson told DailyMail.com.
‘Our agency is assisting as needed; however, the NTSB and FBI are investigating the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident. For more information, contact those agencies directly.’
Flight data shows the plane, a Bombardier Challenger 300, reached a maximum altitude of 26,000 feet before descending suddenly after traveling south along the Connecticut River before landing around 3:45 p.m.
The plane was headed for Leesburg Executive Airport in suburban DC, where the family lived.
It was not clear if Hyde was buckled into her seat, or circling, in the cabin of the plane owned by Kansas City, Missouri-based Conexon. Her husband and her son, along with the pilot and co-pilot, were not injured in the incident, according to the report.
A representative for Conexon, a company specializing in rural internet, declined to comment Friday.
John Cox, a former airline pilot and now a safety consultant, said there are “definitely problems” with the pilots’ pre-flight actions, but said they reacted correctly when they followed the checklist for responding to a trim failure. .
The flight crew consisted of two experienced pilots with 5,000 and 8,000 hours of flight time, and had the necessary qualifications to fly for an airline. But both were relatively new to the model plane and got their qualifications last October.
The FAA issued its directive on Bombardier Challenger 300 aircraft last year after multiple instances in which the aircraft’s horizontal stabilizer caused the plane’s nose to pitch down after the pilot tried to get the aircraft to climb.