Chris CiarloChannel 2 News
In the few days since a plane crashed at the National Championship Air Races in Reno, killing nine people and injuring dozens more.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are still on scene at the Reno-Stead Airport, sifting through the wreckage.
They say they collected some critical data in this investigation at the crash site, which should give them an idea why and how this happened.
"Obviously, because of the severity of the accident," said Howard Plagens, the NTSB lead investigator. "They are contaminated with different kinds of fluids, dirt and dust from being randomly out on ramp."
Investigators say the plane also had a recording system that logged the flight in real time. From that recording system, they can look at the plane's velocity and altitude. They also found pieces of a camera at the wreckage site. Investigators say the plane had a camera in the cockpit facing outward.
They say these could be significant pieces to understanding what happened here at the Air Races on Thursday, just before Jimmy Leeward crashed into some box seats.
Investigators plan to have the on-scene investigation finished by the end of the Sunday. So, the next step in this process is getting all the information they gathered back to the NTSB Research and Engineering Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
"The first part of the investigation is gathering factual evidence," Mark Rosekind, an NTSB Board Member said. "In this case, we have a lot of factual information and data sources to send back to analysis."
Investigators say a preliminary report with their findings will be published this Friday, but it will take months before they know what happened.
