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MARIETTA -- A federal investigator said Wednesday that a plane had been cleared to approach the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport about 40 seconds before it crashed into a car lot along Ohio 7 Tuesday morning, killing both men aboard.
Communications between the plane and the tower were normal before it began "descending out of the sky at a very steep angle and impacting the ground," said Aaron McCarter, investigator in charge of the incident for the National Transportation Safety Board, in a press conference near the site that was streamed live by an Ohio media outlet to which an NTSB spokesman provided a link.
Parkersburg resident Eric S. Seevers, 45, and Timothy F. Gifford, 49, of Orient, Ohio, died in the crash, investigators said Tuesday. It happened at the Pioneer Buick GMC lot in Reno, about three miles from the local airport, where the plane was supposed to pick up two Parkersburg residents and take them to Florida.
Preliminary weather information indicates there was icing in the area, McCarter said.
"So we're going to be paying particular attention to the deicing capabilities of this airplane," he said.
McCarter disputed online speculation that the plane was on fire, based on security camera footage shared Tuesday on Facebook. He said some people may have believed they saw flames due to the frame rate of the video and lights on the aircraft.
"There is absolutely no evidence that the aircraft was on fire," McCarter said.
The investigation team includes representatives of Textron Aviation, the company that manufactured the 1974 Beechcraft King Air E90, and technical advisers from Pratt & Whitney Canada, as the engines were manufactured there, McCarter said. An NTSB team member was using a drone to map the crash site Wednesday morning.
Investigators will be on the scene for the next day or two, McCarter said. At some point, the wreckage will likely be taken to a facility in Delaware to do further investigation "under more controlled circumstances," he said.
McCarter said officials were in the process of obtaining maintenance records for the plane from its owners in the Cleveland area.
The plane's owner is listed in Federal Aviation Administration records as Avintel Management LLC in Dublin, Ohio. Contact information for the company could not located Wednesday.
McCarter said his goal is to produce a preliminary report within 10 days. The full report will take nine to 12 months and will be reviewed by NTSB board members to determine the probable cause, he said.