Medical Jet’s Voice Recorder Likely Hadn’t Worked for 'Years' Before Philly Plane Crash That Killed 7, NTSB Says

Authorities have released their preliminary report about the Philadelphia plane crash that killed seven people in January.

Just after 6:00 p.m. local time on Jan. 31, a medical jet carrying two passengers — a mother and her daughter — as well as four crew members crashed near Roosevelt Mall at Cottman and Bustleton avenues. One person on the ground was also killed as a result of the crash and 24 were injured.

One major finding in the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report, which was released on Thursday, Mar. 6, was that the Learjet 55's cockpit voice recorder didn't record the fatal crash — and that it had "likely not been recording audio for several years."

Additionally, according to the NTSB's report, although the medical jet's flight crew had been in communication with an air traffic control tower at Northeast Philadelphia Airport, where the flight departed about a minute before the crash, there were "no distress calls" recorded.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy previously said air traffic controllers didn’t hear anything concerning before the crash, the Associated Press reported.

The report did not contain any additional information about the cause of the crash.

Jet Rescue Air Ambulance previously identified the four crew members on the flight as Capt. Alan Alejandro Montoya Perales, co-pilot Josue de Jesus Juarez Juarez, Dr. Raul Meza Arredondo, and paramedic Rodrigo Lopez Padilla, according to NBC affiliate WCAU and CBS affiliate KYW-TV.

The passengers on the plane were Valentina Guzman Murillo and her mother, Lizeth Murillo Ozuna, while the person on the ground was identified by loved ones as Steven Dreuitt, 37.

An EMT who helped transport Valentina and her mother to the airport that day said that Valentina had spina bifida and was receiving treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia, but that the entire family was "excited to go" home to Mexico. 

In their report, NTSB officials said the plane was equipped with an Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, which helps pilots avoid collisions with terrain or obstacles.

Authorities said they may be able to recover additional flight data from the EGPWS computer, but that aspect of the investigation is still ongoing.

Those injured in the crash included Dreuitt's fiancée, Dominique Goods, who had burns to 70% of her body, his son, as well as another young boy, 10 year old Andre Howard, who was hit by flying debris as he protected his younger sister during the chaos.

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According to the boy's father, after Andre woke up from brain surgery he asked about two pressing matters: his sister’s safety and whether he'd missed rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles to win the Super Bowl.

"He asked me, 'Daddy, what's today?' I was like, 'Monday.' 'OK, wait. We didn't play yesterday did we?' 'No, you didn't miss the Super Bowl,' " father Andre Howard Jr. told ABC News.

The crash in Philly took place just two days after a Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines flight over Washington, D.C., killing 67 people.