Recorder found in Texas plane crash; some victims identified
Dallas (US): Federal investigators said Monday that they have started analysing the cockpit voice recorder from a small plane that struck a hangar after taking off from a suburban Dallas airport, and local officials have released the names of six of the 10 people killed in the fiery crash.
Two crew members and eight passengers died when the Beechcraft BE-350 King Air crashed into the unoccupied building Sunday morning at Addison Municipal Airport, north of Dallas.
Clay Jenkins, the top Dallas County official who presides over the board of commissioners, said Monday evening that the medical examiner's office confirmed 52-year-old Brian Mark Ellard, 58-year-old Stephen Lee Thelen, 28-year-old Matthew Palmer, 15-year-old Alice Maritato and 13-year-old Dylan Maritato were among those killed.
Jenkins said in a tweeted statement that the names of the other victims would be released after officials identified their remains and informed their families. Meanwhile, the Catholic Diocese of Dallas identified a sixth victim as Ornella Ellard.
The diocese said the woman was the mother of Alice and Dylan Maritato, and that the teens attended area Roman Catholic schools.
It said Brian Ellard was the teens' stepfather. The plane was scheduled to fly to St. Petersburg, Florida. Witnesses and local authorities said the aircraft struggled to gain altitude then veered into the hangar not far from a busy commercial strip and densely populated residential neighbourhoods.
National Transportation Safety Board officials said at a news conference Monday afternoon that the cockpit voice recorder was being analyzed at the board's laboratory in Washington. Comments between pilots and background noise from recorders sometimes helps investigators understand what went wrong. The private plane was not required to have a flight data recorder, a device that tracks the performance of virtually every system on board.
The fire was so intense that investigators only know that the landing wheels were still in their down position when the plane struck the hangar.
