Tim Ciesco

NTSB: Cockpit Voice Recording Captures Comment About ‘Engine Problem' Shortly Before Crash at Addison Airport

Federal investigators on Tuesday said a cockpit voice recorder captured crew members in a plane that crashed in Addison commenting about a problem with one of the plane's engines moments before it crashed into a hangar at Addison Airport Sunday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the recorder has already been sent to Washington, D.C. for further analysis and contained two hours of "high quality audio".

"Crew comment consistent with confusion occurred about 12 seconds before the end of the recording," said NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg. "Crew comment regarding a problem with the left engine occurred about eight seconds before the end of the recording."

Landsberg would not elaborate.

A group of technical experts will review the entire recording at NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C. and put together a transcript that will be made public at a later date.

Landsberg said they've also obtained four pieces of video that show the plane in the moments before and after the crash -- two from the end of the runway, one from another hangar at the airport and one from the dash cam of a fire truck that was parked near the crash site.

NTSB investigators are expected to remain in Addison through Thursday as they continue their probe into what happened.

All ten people on board the Beechcraft Super King Air 350 -- two pilots and eight passengers -- were killed when it collided with the hangar shortly after takeoff.

Pilot Charla Dumas said she was pulling her small plane out of a hanger across the tarmac when she saw the King Air turboprop going down.

"It's like watching something, you already know the ending," she said. "There's nothing you can do. You already know you're going to be shocked. I don't know how else to put it."

Dumas, a web designer who wants to one day be a full-time pilot, says she's still affected by the horror she witnessed.

Dumas, a web designer who wants to one day be a full-time pilot, said she's still affected by the horror she witnessed.

"As far as the families, I honestly think about them every day," she said. "I think about the crash a couple hundred times a day. And I think about the families a lot."

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