Post Crash, What’s Next For Spectrum

Spectrum’s principals and associated manufacturer Rocky Mountain met Wednesday to discuss future plans, including certification of the Spectrum 33 light jet and matters far more personal. The light jet and its test crew were lost Tuesday at about 4 p.m. in a crash at Spanish Fork-Springville airport. It’s been just four months since Linden Blue, veteran pilot, founder and managing director of Spectrum Aeronautical, LLC, had his dreams take flight aboard a carbon fiber 10-seater design-prototype ultimately aiming for a performance goal 415-knot cruise at 45,000 feet and 2,000 nautical range. It’s been some forty flights since the jet’s first. Glenn Maben, Spectrum’s director of flight operations, and Nathan Forrest, vice director, were killed in the crash, according to Austin Blue, president of Spectrum Aeronautical LLC. The jet was on the road toward certification, but the company now faces a very different set of priorities. Energy at the roughly 85 person company will likely be spent on investigation, until a cause is determined, and healing. Witnesses describe the aircraft departing the runway at Spanish Fork-Springville airport in Utah when the right wing dipped and caught the ground. The aircraft then cartwheeled and broke up. One hundred eighty gallons of Jet-A were spilled, but there was no post-crash fire.