NTSB gains insight into crash weather

"He estimated that he had five to seven miles of visibility and that the ceilings were at about 600 feet," said Deborah Hersman, chairwoman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

The pilot who reported the conditions owns a lodge north of Dillingham and was one of several people interviewed Saturday as safety investigators begin to wrap up their on-the-ground investigation, Hersman said. It's unclear how weather conditions observed by the witness that day compare with the specific conditions encountered by the Otter carrying Stevens, pilot Theron "Terry" Smith and seven others.

A pilot who spotted the wreckage Monday night in the Muklung Hills said he saw the downed plane "at about 1,000 feet" on the side of a mountain.

Investigators estimate the plane crashed about 15 minutes after takeoff from a GCI-owned lodge near Lake Aleknagik. The group was headed to a fish camp on the Nushagak River.

In addition to the pilot from the other lodge, investigators on Saturday also spoke with someone who was with the Stevens group before takeoff and the widow of the pilot killed in the crash. Investigators now plan to further examine the plane wreckage at a Dillingham hangar and hope to interview the two survivors they haven't talked to yet.

Four people lived through the wreck: Former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, his son Kevin, lobbyist Jim Morhard and 13-year-old William "Willy" Phillips Jr.

State and federal rules don't require the plane to be equipped with cockpit voice recorders or flight data recorders, but sometimes investigators can mine GPS units, cell phones and BlackBerries found on downed aircraft for clues about a flight.

Hersman said she wasn't optimistic investigators would be able to pull much information from those sources but said the team will attempt to piece together what happened using other clues. "Our investigators are kind of like the CSI of transportation. So we look at all of the evidence, and we try and see what we can find."

Investigators also plan to review phone records and e-mail messages between the GCI lodge where Stevens and others departed and the fish camp where they never arrived, Hersman said.

The crash wasn't discovered until hours after takeoff, when someone at the GCI lodge contacted the fish camp, wondering when the Otter would make the short trip back for dinner. GCI President Ron Duncan said it's protocol for the camp to call in if the plane doesn't arrive and he wasn't sure why that didn't happen.

Camp guide Byron Orth has said that when no one showed up, they figured the trip had been canceled, according to The Associated Press. State medical examiner Katherine Raven said a faster response by rescuers likely wouldn't have prevented any of the passengers from dying given their "severe and fatal" injuries.

Meantime, investigators talked to the wife of the Otter's pilot, Terry Smith, learning more about his flying history and what he was doing in the 72 hours before the accident. Determining a pilot's activities in the days before a crash can help investigators identify or rule out fatigue, Hersman said.

Smith's wife, who is also a pilot, told investigators she talked to Smith shortly before the fatal trip. Smith didn't indicate anything was out of the ordinary, she told safety officials.

The NTSB, an independent federal agency, normally publishes its findings -- including the cause of the accident and any recommendations for how to avoid similar crashes in the future -- about 12 to 18 months after crash.

The pilot who told the NTSB of weather conditions in the area Saturday had been flying to and from Dillingham at about 2:45 p.m., twice crossing the flight path of the downed plane. Investigators haven't pinpointed the exact time of the crash, saying it could be anywhere between 2 and 3:15 p.m.

Hersman said the pilot's account of the conditions was "probably the weather that is the most accurate" so far in the investigation. Hersman did not name the pilot or others interviewed during the investigation. The manager of the GCI lodge told investigators he estimated the cloud ceiling was maybe 2,000 feet at the time of takeoff from the lodge.

In addition to Stevens and Smith, the pilot, those killed were lobbyist Bill Phillips, GCI senior vice president Dana Tindall, and Tindall's 16-year-old daughter, Corey.