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A piece of the Learjet that slammed into the ground in Florida, killing all nine people aboard, was found nearly 4 miles from the crash site, investigators said Tuesday, confirming that the plane was breaking apart before impact.

National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman said most of the left elevator — part of the tail that controls the plane’s pitch — was found in three pieces between 1.3 miles (2 kilometers) and 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) from Greenacres, near West Palm Beach, where the jet went down Sunday afternoon.

“What that means exactly, in terms of what caused the aircraft to lose control, or whether the loss of this piece was a result of the forces on the aircraft, we don’t know yet,” Chapman said at a news conference.

Without the elevator intact, the pilot would not have been able to pull the Learjet out of its nosedive, Chapman said.

“At those speeds I don’t know that it would’ve been effective even if it had still been attached to the aircraft, but knowing that it was lost is a very important piece of evidence in terms of pointing us toward other things to investigate,” Chapman said.

The pieces that broke off the plane were probably a byproduct of the nosedive, not the cause, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti told The Associated Press. Their discovery within a few miles of the crash site suggests the elevator components fell off closer to the ground, he said.

“If those parts would have broken off at altitude, those pieces would be a lot farther away,” Guzzetti said.

Investigators have been scouring the area for wreckage, collecting dashcam video and speaking to witnesses. After days of heavy rain, they plan to access the crater on Wednesday and expect to find critical components of the plane.

Chapman reasserted Tuesday that weather was a focus of the investigation.

A preliminary NTSB report will be released in about a month, but it will likely take more than a year to determine the probable cause of the crash.

A week after a Learjet 60 plummeted out of the sky and exploded in flames on a main road in Palm Beach County killing all nine people aboard, federal and local authorities have finished their on-site investigation, which included recovering the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder and other pieces.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and National Transportation Safety Board investigators wrapped up their work at the scene, where a large crater is gouged in some of the lanes, by Monday evening.

In addition to the cockpit voice recorder being found at the crash site, investigators have recovered pieces from both wings and engines, the flight deck and aileron sections, among others, the NTSB said Monday.

The federal agency announced last week that the jet’s left tail elevator, which controls the up and down pitch of the plane, was found in three pieces within a range of 1.3 miles to 3.8 miles away from the impact site, evidence that key parts of the aircraft broke off before impact with the ground.

Some parts of the jet have been sent to NTSB labs in Washington, D.C., to be inspected, the agency said. The cockpit voice recorder was taken to the agency’s Vehicle Recorders Laboratory in D.C., the NTSB said in a post on X Monday evening.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Joel Flores, whose district includes the area of the crash, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Monday that the estimated 350 to 400 residents of the Green Acres Mobile Home Community who have been displaced since the crash are likely to be able to return to their homes this week. He said his goal is within “the next couple of days.”

Homes in the community have been inspected for safety, he said, and all but three have been deemed safe. Water connection also has been restored to the community, he said.

The county in a news release later said residents of the mobile home park could return home starting Monday night. Those that cannot return have been given assistance with temporary housing, the release said.

In a statement shared on social media Monday morning, the Sheriff’s Office said deputies and forensic specialists have “demobilized from the scene” and the site has been examined and processed. The Florida Department of Transportation will begin repairing the road damage.