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Stewart plane was traveling 600 mph at impact Associated Press October 29 3:39pm ET | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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ABERDEEN, S.D. -- Payne Stewart's Learjet was going about 600 mph when it struck the ground, the chief government investigator said Friday.
Bob Benzon of the National Transportation Safety Board based the speed estimate on the condition of the cockpit voice recorder taken from the wreckage. The golfer's plane carved a 10-foot-deep crater in the ground, and the aircraft and the six people aboard were torn to pieces. "We know it was well over 100 times the force of gravity, based on the fact that the flight recorder is only guaranteed to 100 Gs and it broke," Benzon said. In fact, the voice recorder was in such bad shape that the NTSB decided to send it to Seattle so its manufacturer could help with the readout. The unit uses electronics to store information, rather than a magnetic tape of the sort used in a tape recorder. The device is a 30-minute loop that records over itself, so officials do not expect to hear anything from when the plane veered off course because that happened hours before the crash. But it might have picked up cockpit sounds, such as the wind or the engine, that could provide clues. Investigators continued Friday to sort through mangled pieces of the plane. On Monday, the Learjet flew 1,400 miles across the country, apparently on autopilot, until it ran out of fuel. Government officials and pilots have said one possible explanation is that it lost cabin pressure soon after takeff from Florida, causing everyone on board to die or lose consciousness. During the ghostly journey, the jet -- shadowed by military planes -- was flying as much as nine miles high. When it ran out of fuel, it went into a spiral and plummeted the final two miles. The wreckage was taken to a hangar in Aberdeen, and parts that may yield clues to the crash will be shipped to various places for analysis. Search crews had to pick through thousands of parts and pry apart metal, plastic, fabric, rubber and glass. "It's not a very pretty exercise," Benzon said. "Everything from crowbars to sledgehammers and dental picks are used. We try to eliminate what went right and what parts look good and perhaps account for something suspicious." Bone and tissue from the plane's occupants are being analyzed to see whether carbon monoxide may have contributed to the crash, or if one of the two pilots had a heart attack, Benzon said. It could be several months before the wreckage is fully analyzed.
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Players offer tearful tribute to Stewart Roberts: Stewart showed his courage in reaching out to others Investigators fear cause of crash will never be known
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