WASHINGTON – Federal investigators have preliminarily ruled out birds or an engine failure as contributing to a jet crash that killed six people in a Gaithersburg neighborhood.
National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt provided an update on the investigation a day after the fiery crash that damaged three homes near the Montgomery County Airpark. Investigators have been on scene since Monday morning examining the wreckage, analyzing flight data and cockpit voice records and other communciations.
Investigators have found evidence that the plane’s nose tipped up dramatically and that its wings rolled steeply from side to side as the plane dropped to its lowest airspeed – just 101 mph – shortly before the crash. An automated alarm went off 20 seconds before the crash warning that the plane could stall because the airflow over the wings was “disrupted.” The stall warning continued to go off until the end of the cockpit voice recording, Sumwalt says.
Investigators still don’t know for sure how the pilot reacted to the pitching of the nose and the rolling of the wings except that he sped up the plane and the engines kicked in. Sumwalt wouldn’t say that the plane was traveling too slowly.
He said investigators inspecting the wreckage were able to move the blades of the engine and found no signs of the birds caught within the jet engine. Investigators believe that there were birds near the runway but the birds were on the ground and not near the plane at the time of the crash, Sumwalt says.
The initial inspection of the engines also revealed no signs of an in-flight fire or engine failure.
Sumwalt also said that the pilot had 4,500 hours of flight time and that he had been involved in a crash in March 2010.
Michael Rosenberg was among those on the plane who were killed Monday. Rosenberg had piloted a plane that crashed in Gaithersburg on March 1, 2010.
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