The National Transportation Safety Board provided preliminary updates on Monday’s fatal plane crash in Colonie Tuesday. The crash happened in a wooded area near Maxwell Road, killing the unidentified female pilot.
Officials say the plane was destroyed in a post-crash explosion and fire. The plane had been doing surveying in North Carolina and was heading to Canada when it took off from nearby Albany International Airport around 8:15 a.m. Officials say the plane experienced difficultly gaining altitude and the pilot attempted to regain control before crashing.
Lynn Spencer, an Air Safety Inspector with the NTSB, says the aircraft, a Piper Navajo, is being recovered and will be sent to Massachusetts to be examined.
“This plane did not have a flight data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder,” Spencer said during a press conference at the William K. Sanford Library, near the crash site. “It is not required to. However, we have, hopefully some non-volatile memory, some systems onboard the airplane that do retain data. So those will go to our recorders laboratory in Washington and hopefully we will be able to get a lot of that data that is on these recorders. Sometimes that can show us everything from the airplane’s attitude to the entire engine’s performance and fuel performance.”
A preliminary report is expected in two to three weeks. Colonie officials say traffic in the area near the town library should return to normal on Wednesday.
