Bombardier Challenger 650 Jet Crashes During Takeoff at Bangor International Airport in Maine

Transcript: Aviation Attorney Breaks Down the N10KJ Crash

[0:00] All traffic is stopped on the field. All traffic is stopped on the field. Today we’re here to talk about a crash that occurred on January 25th, very recent. But before we dive in and really investigate that crash, it’s important to understand that this crash was a tragedy. People lost their lives. So before we explore the intricacies of it, um from all of us here at Ramos Law and Ramos Law Aviation, we are so sorry to the family, the friends, the loved ones um who uh who lost people in this crash. That being said, let’s dive in. Let’s see if we can figure something out.

[0:38] So, let’s start with what we know about the crash. On Sunday, January 25th, 2026, at 7:44 local time, November 10 kilo Juliet (10 kilo Juliet), a Challenger 650 crashed on departure from the Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine. Now, the aircraft was headed to Paris. Even though at face value this crash seems pretty straightforward, there’s actually a lot to chat about and in this video I’ll walk you through what we know in the preliminary hours and days since the accident and I’ll let you know where we go from here.

[1:08] For those who don’t know me, I’m Joe LoRusso. I’m the director of aviation here at Ramos Law. Professionally, I wear two hats. I’m an ATP rated professional pilot who still actively flies and I’m an aviation attorney who along with our team of attorneys and investigators handles crash cases throughout the nation. I hope to give y’all some insight into this crash from both a pilot and attorney perspective. So, I’ll swap hats from time to time.

[1:36] As with any crash investigation, we start with the hard facts. So, we know the aircraft departed from KBGR on runway 33. We know it was headed to Paris. Now based on ATC recordings, we know that they ordered and received type 1 and type 4 de-ice fluid prior to taking off. We know the weather at the time of takeoff based on the METAR that was cut pretty close to takeoff was 3/4 of a mile visibility, light snow, ceiling 1100, temperature -7, dew point -19 both Celsius.

[2:06] Now, witnesses report that the airplane came off the ground slightly while during its takeoff roll, then settled right back to the ground, and then it veered off the runway, flipped upside down, and burst into flames. And we know that that speed coming off the runway was right around 152 knots. And we know the distance was right around 5,800 ft down the runway.

[2:26] Now, from both a pilot and attorney perspective, it’s important to get a general picture of the incident and then we narrow from there as necessary into different categories for the investigation. So, we know the aircraft was using Bangor Maine as what we call a tech stop. It’s not your final destination. Rather, you’re simply getting fuel and then from there they were planning to head to Paris.

[2:47] Now, we know that because they were going to Paris, they were likely heavy with gas and we know they had six-packs and bags. So, heavy packs, heavy bags. So, they were likely within a couple thousand feet of their max takeoff weight, which is around 48,200 lb on the Challenger 650. Now, for most Atlantic crossings, larger aircraft like the 650 will utilize what we call OTS or the organized track system crossing the North Atlantic—just published tracks that are known for crossing the North Atlantic. And we differ that from small aircraft. Uh you might see, you know, some of like the Bonanzas or the Cessnas that do the crossing, they’ll use the Blue Spruce routing and that goes up through Canada, Greenland, Iceland, around there.

[3:29] But the 650 was using the OTS and the OTS clearance, you got to get that clearance about 40 minutes before your oceanic clearance. Once airborne though, on that clearance, you have to hit your coastal, what we call our coastout time, within 2 minutes. So that crew would have been jockeying their speed to make sure that they hit that coastout point at two minutes and from that point in time their speed is now has to be set at what they filed. Um and you know altitude, timing, all that for all the points going across on the tracks unless of course they coordinate something different with ATC.

[4:03] Timing is crucial for a crossing on the tracks because you have to have safe aircraft separation. There are periods across the ocean where you lose radar separation. So timing and speed is critical. So it’s safe to say that the crew of 10 kilo Juliet picked up the clearance prior to de-icing. Um and we have to consider at least a certain stressor on that crew to maintain their coastout time. It’s a very nerve-wracking thing when you’re crossing the ocean. You want to make sure that you’re doing everything right and you don’t want to miss your coastout time only to then have to get another slot and maybe that other slot is 6 hours down the road, right?

[4:40] So, a certain amount of stress to make sure that they hit that time. And we also have to consider the stress that could have been pushed onto the crew from the passengers. Now, those stresses, especially when we’re talking about an international abroad flight, we have, you know, hotels, rental cars, museums, trips, planning, excursions, you name it, right? But typically the passengers on international flights will have that stuff planned. And there’s a stressor that the passengers have to make sure that they don’t have to cancel or reschedule those things. And that stress naturally gets pushed onto the crew in varying forms of intensity. So we know that there is at least two significant stressors on the crew before we even look at the big part of this crash, which is the weather.

[5:26] So, as discussed, the METAR at the time was reporting 3/4 of a mile visibility, light snow, and -17° C. That METAR was confirmed through the arrival of a Moxy jet, Breeze Airlines, flying an Airbus that landed minutes before 10 kilo Juliet departed. From a pilot’s perspective, there’s many things you have to consider when you have cold, snowy conditions for your departure. Very high, if not the highest on that list, is contamination—critical surface contamination and icing.

[5:54] Now, as with most jets, the Challenger 650 AFM says takeoff is prohibited with frost, ice, snow, or slush adhering to any critical surface. What are those surfaces? Wings, horizontal stab, vertical stab, control surfaces, engine inlets, all count within the AFM. Now according to that AFM, a tactile check of the leading edge wing is required when the temperature outside is 5 degrees C or less and the atmospheric conditions are conducive to frost contamination formation. What does tactile mean? Tactile means physical touching—means the crew is walking around the airplane and putting their hands on all the critical surfaces and feeling that grit, right? When that frost and ice gets on there, it’s like sandpaper. You feel that grit and you know it’s just going to disrupt the laminar flow.

[6:41] And at that point in time, you got to start thinking, am I not doing this flight? Am I de-icing? Right? Is de-icing a possibility? Now, I’m sure the crew did that tactile check and noticed contamination because we know that they ordered type 1 and type 4 de-ice. So, let’s talk about that. Type one can be thought of as a cleaning solution. It’s sprayed hot. It’s orange in color. So that in the cockpit we can one recognize that type one is being applied as we ordered, but two we can see where it’s being applied if you can look back there, depending on your visibility and depending on the jet. That one is sprayed to clean off the contamination that they would have recognized in the tactile check; that puts it back to a clean surface.

[7:20] Now type four added on top of that, type four is a preventative fluid. It’s thicker. It’s more viscous. It’s kind of like a slimy and that’s green in color and that’s designed to prevent the formation of frost and ice. So type one cleans, gives you a clean surface; Type four now is a preventative. Now of course that fluid does not prevent frost and ice indefinitely. In fact, it has a very specific window of effectiveness which we call the holdover time.

[7:47] Now this flight is an interesting wrinkle to that traditional holdover time chart. So the type four holdover chart has several options for snow: regular snow, very light snow, light, moderate, small petals, small flakes. There’s a bunch of different options that that chart goes all the way over. Now, you would think since the METAR called light snow that we should use light snow, the light snow box as a pilot. However, the FAA actually has a different chart for that and it’s called the snowfall intensifies as a function of prevailing visibility.

[8:19] And according to that chart, with a visibility at 3/4 of a mile, temps below -1° C, and night (remember that this jet took off almost at 8:00 p.m.), we actually have to use the moderate snow column for our holdover times. And in that case, the holdover time would have been 2 to 9 minutes. However, here’s another ripple. The temp was -17. And at -18, the holdover time reduces to just 1 to 3 minutes. While using negative 18 times is not required because the METAR did say negative 17, it’s something to consider as a pilot that you’re dropping from you know two to nine minutes down to 1 to 3 minutes. It’s pretty significant.

[9:01] And why do I say that that’s a consideration that a pilot may have to think through? Because other traffic had holdover issues. So while 10 kilo Juliet was on the de-ice pad, Allegiant, an airliner 121 op, they called ground and requested to go back to the de-ice pad from the runway for what they called another try. “Tower Legion 976, just talking to company. Uh looks like the plan’s going to be to taxi back over and get sprayed after they’re done spraying that aircraft and try it again.”

[9:31] Allegiant 976: “Yeah, no problem. Non-moving area. You can go over there and uh position yourself to get sprayed.” Shortly thereafter, another Breeze airline jet, call sign Moxy, asked Allegiant on ground if they were returning because they failed a pre-takeoff contamination check. “Hey guys, this is the Breeze Moxy. Guys, did you guys fail the pre-contamination check?” “Uh yeah, so I don’t know what blew over at the end of the runway, but the visibility dropped and it stuck to us like there was nothing there.”

[10:01] And Allegiant confirmed they did that they iced up again at the end of the runway saying, and I quote, “It stuck to us like there was nothing nothing there,” referring to the contamination sticking to the aircraft despite the fact that they obviously de-iced as well. Now a couple considerations on that. We know that there was a crosswind at least of 8 knots. So, we have blowing snow, and not only do we have blowing snow that’s producing contaminant and putting contaminant on your wings, but you also have a factor from the wind reducing the temperature, right? Something to consider there as well of when you’re thinking about as a pilot: do you go to the -17? Do you go to the -18 chart?

[10:39] So, let’s translate what Allegiant said a bit. Allegiant was de-iced. They attempted to get to the runway and take off within the hold time, within their holdover time and before becoming contaminated, but they weren’t successful, right? They were contaminated. They had to go back and try it again and get the ice. They built up enough frost and ice to be considered contaminated, and they had to cancel that takeoff clearance. Hearing that, the Moxy crew told the Legion that they weren’t even going to try it despite their ops and dispatch telling them to give it a go. They said it wasn’t worth it.

[11:08] So now at 1936, 10 kilo Juliet exited the de-ice pad and it began taxiing for takeoff. Keep in mind the holdover clock starts when the de-ice crew starts its final application. So when they’re on the final spray of the jet, that’s when you start the clock. So we don’t know right now how long that de-ice crew took to do their final sweep of the aircraft, their final application. You’d assume from Bangor Maine that they’re pretty proficient at de-icing an aircraft, but you just don’t know, right? We don’t have that fact right now. What we do know is eight minutes later, from 1936 to 1944, 10 kilo Juliet began its takeoff roll.

[11:48] Now, keep in mind, while those numbers seem exact, there’s slush to that. Like I said, we don’t know when the de-ice crew started its last application on 10 kilo Juliet, and we don’t know how long that took, but we know that 8 minutes is fairly close to the end of the holdover time if you use the -14 to -8 time frame and 8 minutes is certainly over the holdover time if you use the -18 to -25 time. So certainly some significant issues there.

[12:16] Now given the times and the weather conditions we can proceed in our investigation with the assumption that the wings were contaminated—that negatively impacted lift. To further confirm that assumption or theory, we can turn to pictures, we can turn to videos, and we can turn to witness statements. Don’t know about the first two. There are pictures of the jet afterwards flipped upside down, but we don’t have any pictures of it taking off and settling, but we do have a witness (unconfirmed) that spotted the jet come off the runway for a little bit before settling back down.

[12:46] And we know the jet came off the runway at about 5800 ft. We know the jet was traveling at approximately 152 knots. Now, typical V1 speeds for that jet in those conditions for the 650 are between 120 and 140. While we don’t know the exact weight of the aircraft, we can assume heavy bags, heavy gas along with six passengers. We can safely assume the V1 speed was on the higher end of that average, nearing 140. The typical takeoff distance for that aircraft is around 5600 ft for those conditions. Those two facts seem to align with the witness statement.

[13:13] So, the aircraft was faster than V1 when it departed the runway. Uh given the distance and the statement, it would make sense that the aircraft tried to lift off at VR, but due to contamination, settled back down at the runway, gained a couple knots, right? 5, 10, 12 knots. Um, and then for whatever reason at that point in time, the aircraft departed the runway surface and then hit outside of the runway and flipped over.

[13:42] So, what comes next? Well, the NTSB is the only entity that has that Congress has delegated power to for crash investigations when it comes to aircraft. Now, often times we see the FAA there, and the FAA is usually there as an aid to the NTSB running a parallel investigation. Um, but often times the NTSB because they’re understaffed, because they’re underbudgeted, or because they’re just busy, um, a lot of times the NTSB won’t show up to a crash. What types of crashes they will typically show up to is a fatality, right? Or something with significance like a 121, like an airliner crashing, something like that.

[14:24] So, in this one, we can expect, given the fatalities, we can expect the NTSB will show up and they won’t delegate that congressional power to the FAA. And we can also expect the FAA to show up as well. So, it’ll be the NTSB, the FAA running side-by-side parallel investigations, but they’re going to be looking at two different things. So the FAA will look more at the incident from a regulatory perspective. So they’re going to look at, you know, was the jet legal, right? Did it have all of its LOAs? Did it have all of its maintenance? Was it on the correct phases? All the inspections, all that was in line. They’re also going to look at the pilots, medicals, recurrence, type ratings, um 58 rides, all that stuff is going to be done as well by the FAA.

[15:05] Now, the NTSB is going to look at it from a truly positive perspective—what actually caused this jet to crash. They’re going to look at maintenance. They’re going to look at stuff like in especially as we just discussed, they’re going to look at the de-ice fluid, right? Uh I wouldn’t be surprised if that was sampled by the NTSB and preserved and tested to make sure that the type 4 was fully up to standards to be applied on the jet. Um they’re going to check all those things.

[15:35] Now, the NTSB is going to hold the scene. What that means is it’s theirs. Law enforcement doesn’t hold it. NTSB has control of it. And when they’re done taking pictures and collecting what they need to collect at the scene, they’ll call a salvage company. The salvage company will move the aircraft to a storage center. The storage center will be under lock and key. And at that time, the NTSB will perform a second investigation. That second investigation will be done with industry members. So in this case, the big obvious one is Bombardier. So Challenger is a Bombardier product. A Bombardier rep will likely be a part of that indoors at the salvage center investigation of the aircraft.

[16:12] And then the NTSB will work through after that investigation any smaller investigations that they need to do. If they need to do engine testing, if they do need to do metallurgy, if they need to do anything like that, they’ll do that at their leisure as they work towards their final.

[16:25] Now, the NTSB produces two documents. They used to produce three, they now produce two. Those two documents are the preliminary report and the final report. The preliminary report they expect to get out within the first two weeks. Usually it’s under that. Um to their credit, usually a couple of days and that one is purely factual. So what’s the weather? What’s the type of aircraft? What was the type of operation? Who was the operator? Where were they going? What was on board? Um purely factual.

[16:54] Now their final report, they aim to get it out in 12 months. More realistically, that will come out in 24 months. And that final report will come with a docket and the docket will have all the supporting information that they use to come up with the final. So photos, metallurgy, airframe inspection, maintenance inspection, witness statements, stuff like that will all be in the docket for their final report.

[17:22] Now, a lot of people think the final report is the end-all be-all for causation, for negligence, for culpability, especially when we talk about what happens when the law gets involved, right? What happens when there’s a lawsuit? Um, and a lot of people are shocked to find out that the NTSB report itself holds no evidentiary basis by law, by congressional mandate—holds no basis for culpability and negligence.

[17:48] So, what does that mean from an aviation attorney’s perspective? If I put that hat on, what that means is I can’t put an NTSB agent on the stand. I can’t depose them. I can’t put them on the stand and say, “Tell me what you found out. I can’t use the report as a dispositive government document saying negligence or culpability.” I have to run a parallel investigation.

[18:07] Now, so often I see families (again keeping the lawyer hat on on a crash investigation, not to say that there’s a lawsuit around this one, but if we were to dive into that world a little bit), so often I see families wait for the NTSB final report to come out and a lot of times they’re out of time by the time that final report comes out. It comes out and says negligence, and the family understandably gets angry and says, “I want to sue,” and they come to an aviation attorney and we have to tell them you’re out of time.

[18:38] Most states the statute of limitations—the time in which you have to get a case on file—most states the average nationwide is about 2 years, but it does fluctuate from state to state. But most of the time it’s about 2 years. So if the NTSB produces their report you know 2 years and 3 months (right? 2 years and a day), and that’s the spurring event to get the family involved—that’s a very unfortunate and very difficult conversation to the family who’s lost a loved one saying “You’re out of time to seek justice,” right?

[19:07] So what we typically do, what we would like to do or what we commonly do on crashes is a member of the family gets a hold of us early and we run a side-by-side investigation. So when the NTSB releases the aircraft and no longer needs to look at it and now just needs to work on writing their report, that’s when we step in and we put our team of investigators (you know, pilot experts, weather experts, airframe experts, type specific experts, metallurgists, you name it) we put them on the aircraft and we run a side-by-side investigation to determine culpability, negligence, or if none of those two exist, just a reason why this happened, right? Just so the family could have some amount of closure for what happened to their loved one so they could understand the loss a little bit better and help with their grieving.

[19:57] Obviously, a lot more to come in this accident um in the coming days, in the coming hours, we’re going to find out more. Um and we look forward to the release of the NTSB’s prelim to see if we can glean any additional facts that are not yet made available publicly to us. So, looking forward to that as well.

[20:14] For all of us, everybody listening, this is a brand new channel where we’re diving into these crashes and investigating them from both a pilot perspective and a legal perspective. And feedback, comments, discussion is very much encouraged and recommended. So, if you have any comments, if you have any questions about this process from either a pilot side or from a legal side, please leave them down in the comments below and we’re very happy to answer those and engage in those comments and questions. Really look forward to this series and look forward to diving into these wrecks.

[20:44] And as it pertains to 10 kilo Juliet. Again, very important to keep in mind a certain level of discretion with this case because um there was a significant amount of people that lost their lives and family members are going through literally the worst times of their life right now. So, please be sensitive to that. And again, from all of us at Ramos Law, um we’re very sorry for your loss and our condolences. Thank you very much for tuning into this video. Look forward to talking to you again soon