NYT: Lack of Cockpit Voice Recorder Might Hamper Investigation

THE PLANE
Lack of Cockpit Voice Recorder Might Hamper Investigation
By JOHN W. FOUNTAIN

EVELETH, Minn., Oct. 26 - Federal investigators today sorted through the wreckage of a plane crash that killed Senator Paul Wellstone and seven others, but efforts to determine the cause of the crash could be hampered by the absence of a cockpit voice recorder.

Carol Carmody, the acting chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in a news conference here that the twin-engine Beechcraft King Air A100 was not required to have a voice recorder under F.A.A. regulations, and was not equipped with one.

Ms. Carmody would not speculate on what caused the crash. She said she did not know whether the absence of a voice recorder would set back the investigation because "we don't know what might have been on it." She added, "Of course, we'd like to have had it."

Officials said it could take months to determine the cause of the crash. Ms. Carmody said the plane sheared the tops off trees before crashing in a swampy wooded area about two miles from a runway at the Eveleth-Virginia Municipal Airport.

It appeared that the plane was not aligned with the runway and was headed south, away from it, Ms. Carmody said. "The angle was steeper than would be expected in a normal stabilized standardized approach," she said.

Investigators today found both of the plane's engines, and said they showed blade damage suggesting that they were still running when the plane hit the ground.

Over the next several days the authorities will examine the wreckage and radar tapes, and will interview the air traffic controllers to "chart exactly what the conditions were yesterday at the time of the accident," Ms. Carmody said.

Investigators arrived at the crash site at dawn today. By this evening, the bodies of all eight victims killed in Friday morning's crash had been removed. An official determination of the cause of the deaths could come as early as Sunday, Ms. Carmody said.

Mr. Wellstone, 58, died along with his wife, Sheila, 59; their daughter, Marcia Markuson, 33; three campaign aides and two pilots.

The main area of the impact was 300 feet by 190 feet, Ms. Carmody said, adding that there was evidence of an "extreme post-crash fire."

"The fuselage is destroyed. The cockpit is gone, the left wing is badly burned, the right wing is quite damaged, the tail is about two-thirds intact," she said.

The absence of a cockpit voice recorder leaves investigators without the benefit of the pilots' conversation before the crash, which might have indicated what problems they were facing, said Gregory Feith, a former senior air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. Mr. Feith said that while the destruction of the cockpit could hamper the investigation, flight instruments sometimes survive such destruction.

"There is a probability that parts of that cockpit could be salvageable and provide investigators with useful information," Mr. Feith said.

A man who lives near the crash site told investigators that he was watching television in his house when he heard a plane passing overhead. He said he came out of his house to see the plane "crabbing to the right" about 95 feet above his house, Ms. Carmody said. The man said he went back inside and less than a minute later felt an impact and heard what he described as a "loud shot," Ms. Carmody said.

Pilots at the airport said flying conditions at the time of the crash - freezing temperatures and light snow with about two miles' visibility - were poor but not unusual.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators conducted today's search behind a roadblock on Bodas Road, which leads to the crash site. Just past noon, a funeral van was allowed to pass through the roadblock, as the authorities prepared to remove the bodies from the crash scene.

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