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NTSB Combs Through Plane Wreckage In Greeley

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Feb 9, 2010 6:20 pm US/Mountain

NTSB Combs Through Plane Wreckage In Greeley

Reporting
Mike Hooker

GREELEY, Colo. (CBS4) ―

Click to enlarge 1 of 2: Jennifer Rodi with the NTSB points at the plane wreckage.
CBS
Click to enlarge 2 of 2: Marc Steinbrecher/YouReport

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The wreckage of two planes that collided in midair over Boulder now sits in a hangar in Greeley.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the investigation isn't typical, as when they look for something that may have caused an engine to fail. In this case they hope the scraps of metal might help explain the human mystery -- why the pilots flew the planes the way they did.

"We have noted quite a bit of crushing and destruction on (the right) side of the airplane," Jennifer Rodi with the NTSB said, referring to the Piper Pawnee.

The pieces were laid out about where they would have been when the plane was whole. Rodi said one of the most valuable clues to exactly how the planes collided may be streaks of blue paint from the other plane, a Cirrus SR-20.

"The paint transfer will give us a better appreciation for exactly where this impact initiated or took place," Rodi said.

There's almost nothing left of the Cirrus.

"The Cirrus was mostly destroyed by fire. It's at this point contained in a couple of Kevlar sacks because it's just burned carbon fiber and a pile of wires."

Rodi said that's one reason why the home video of the Cirrus dropping from the ski is so important.

"It's extremely beneficial because you can see the damage in some angles that the Cirrus sustained before it impacted the ground," she said. "You can see what's remaining of the Cirrus, if you will, whereas when we arrived on scene it was completely consumed by fire."

The bits and pieces may only hint at what the three who died could have explained had they survived.

"Unfortunately we can't go back and ask the pilots because they're not here. We can't ask them where were they looking, what were they doing, was the sun in their eyes, or were they turning, were they distracted, were they looking somewhere else in the sky."

Rodi said the goal is to figure out why the two planes collided so they can look into whether there needs to be changes in training, flight rules, or communications, to keep another collision from happening.

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