Federal investigators said Monday they had finished moving wreckage from one of the planes that crashed at the Wings Over Dallas airshow to a secure location and had retrieved electronic devices from both aircraft.
Investigators moved the wreckage of the smaller P-63 Cobra and were still working to recover pieces of the B-17 bomber after efforts were suspended because of rainy weather Monday, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said.
The planes collided at the Dallas air show Saturday to the horror of spectators watching at Dallas Executive Airport.
At a news conference Monday afternoon, the NTSB also said it was reviewing radio communications from the air show’s common radio frequency – and numerous videos shared by spectators.
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"Being an air show, we received quite a bit of this and we have staff on it right now,” the NTSB’s Michael Graham said. “They'll be at it for quite some time with the numbers we received."
Investigators also recovered a GPS navigational unit from the P-63 and a flight display from the B-17, the NTSB said. Both were damaged in the crash.
Dallas aviation attorney Kent Krause said it appears to him, absent an unknown mechanical failure, to be a case of pilot error.
"It looks to me like the pilot in the Cobra was trying to connect up with the other fighters that were ahead of him and went into a bank to turn and was going much more rapidly than the B-17,” Krause said. "The long and short of it is I don't think he had any idea that he was about to run into another plane."
But Krause cautioned it's still early in the investigation.
The NTSB said it would take at least another month to issue a preliminary report and at least a year to prepare a final report.
