(Rick Durden) wrote:

Evidence examined thus far indicates that the Payne Stewart crash was
decompression, but not explosive. The old Lears had some interesting
systems and according to some reports the company had not maintained
its airplanes all that well or worked off some of the squawks. Those
who have flown the old Lears can give a number of different scenarios
that would generate the gradual loss of cabin pressure that doomed the
Stewart flight.

Back in 1999 I happened to be renting hangar space from the pilot
who trained the Capt. of the Learjet that Stewart was flying in when
it crashed.

Stewart's Capt. was a highly experienced ex-military type who flew
tankers in the Air Force. My pilot friend whom I was renting hangar
space from had also flown the exact same jet (47BA) to the Caribbean
the previous week.

According to him, the jet was well maintained and he was absolutely
baffled by the whole Payne Stewart incident. A sudden decompression
at FL 230 should still give a person more than enough time to don a
mask and the only thing he knew was that the Learjet had just taken
off from Orlando and was at FL 230 over Gainseville (Florida) and
cleared to FL 390 when they lost radio contact with ATC.

In any event, it must've been an eerie sight for the F-16 jocks who
interecepted the Learjet and saw the bodies slumped over, frost on
the windows from the frozen water vapor inside the cabin.