Former Obama aide died in plane accident due to controls malfunction, not 'turbulence' as previously reported

On March 3, 55-year-old Dana J. Hyde, a former Clinton and Obama official and member of the  9/11 Commission, died in a plane accident after the private jet she was flying on experienced a malfunction with its controls. The plane did not crash but had to make an emergency landing after the malfunction caused the plane's passengers to experience pressure four times the force of gravity.

The Daily Mail reports that there were five passengers on board the plane, including Hyde's husband Jonathan Chambers whose company, Conexon LLC, owned the jet. Her son and two crew members were also on the flight, which was headed for Washington, DC but had to be diverted to Connecticut's Bradley International Airport for the landing, and everyone survived except Hyde.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) originally attributed the incident to turbulence.

The NTSB later cataloged a series of events leading up to the accident, starting with a series of alerts going off in the cockpit. One of the pilots then flipped a switch that "trims" the plane's stabilizer, which is located on its tail.

After the stabilizer was turned off, the jet's nose pitched upwards significantly and quickly and generated a change in the internal force on the passengers.

The nose dipped up and down rapidly, at times subjecting the passengers to experience forces four times that of gravity.

NBC News reports the plan made its emergency landing and Hyde, "who lived in Cabin John, Maryland, was rushed by ambulance to Saint Francis Medical Center in Hartford, where she was pronounced dead."

Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration mandated that the plane's model, a Bombardier Challenger 300 twin-engine jet, undergo extra safety checks before lift off.

Hyde worked as the co-chair of the Aspen Partnership for an Inclusive Economy (APIE) at the Aspen Institute, a think tank located in Washington, DC.

Her department "works to bridge the gaps between the people who deserve more inclusive systems and standards and the people who set them," according to their website.

Hyde worked as an attorney for The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US, Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton Administration, and Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Associate Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama administration.