Shortly before 10:00 A.M. on December 20, 2011, a pilot, his wife, two children, and a business colleague departed New Jersey's Teterboro airport in a Socata TBM-700. They should have landed safely in Atlanta a few hours later—but instead their lives ended a few short minutes after takeoff, when the aircraft plummeted to the ground from nearly 18,000 feet.

How could things have gone so wrong? Using audio of the pilot's discussions with air traffic control and factual information from the NTSB, we piece together the story of the tragic flight and examine the factors that led to its sudden, shocking end.

This content was originally published by the Air Safety Institute and is reposted here with permission.