Missoula Plane Crash Investigation Continues, NTSB Finds New Information
Investigators are still in the preliminary stages of a plane crash that took place at the Missoula International Airport last Wednesday. National Transportation and Safety Board Investigator Larry Lewis said they have discovered new information about the plane that 52-year-old Patrick Carter was flying.
"This is an old historic airplane. We are in the process of getting our network together to see if we can reach out and pick up all the pieces that we can ," Lewis said. "We will start here with the photographs and the videos that we have, the witness statements..It is going to be packaged up and taken to a secure facility away from here so if we have further questions we can go back and look at it again."
Because the plane was an older model, Lewis said it could be more of a challenge to figure out the initial cause of the crash.
"The hardest part will be the amount of fire damage to it and we find even with aluminum aircraft with massive fire damage, even metal airplanes don't stand up real well," Lewis said. "It might hinder us somewhat, but typically we are looking at mechanical issues or control surface issues, those kind of things. We actually have been able to determine a lot of background of a very damaged aircraft. We will be see what we can come up with."
Larry said an investigation like this could take up to a year because the information NTSB finds has to agree with what records show.
As of late Thursday afternoon, there still was no known cause for the crash.