LAFAYETTE, La. – The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its accident docket regarding the deadly 2019 plane crash in Lafayette.
The docket includes more than 300 pages of materials, including a weather study, witness reports, a Lafayette Police Department report excerpt, operational reports, and more.
While the final investigative report is still pending, we're getting our first look at where the investigation stands.
First up: never before seen drone video of the crash site. It shows the debris path extending from Verot School Road to the parking lot of the Feu Follet Post Office.
The plane skidded through the parking lot before coming to a rest in a field next to the post office.
While a definitive cause has not been determined in the accident docket, one of the factors investigators cite a large amount of drag on the airplane, which might have resulted from a drag on the propellers following a sudden reduction of power to the engines.
Five people were killed when the small plane crash in the parking lot of the post office on Pinhook Road while en route to an LSU football game in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 28, 2019. Three other individuals were injured on the ground who were not passengers - two inside the post office and one in a car where the plane crashed.
Those killed were the pilot, Ian Biggs, and passengers: Robert Vaughn Crisp II, Carly McCord, Gretchen Vincent, and her 15-year-old son who we've learned from the NTSB was a student pilot.
The only survivor was Wade Berzas; the accident docket includes a summary of his interview with the NTSB. In it, he says he had flown with the pilot, Ian Biggs, between 8-10 times over the last few years. Biggs also says takeoff seemed normal, and the plane pitched up like the pilot was trying to get above the clouds.
Berzas told NTSB investigators up until the impact, he did not hear anything abnormal from the engines or hear anything from the front of the airplane.
KATC will have more information on the NTSB docket and crash tonight in our newscasts.
View the entire accident docket HERE.
All of KATC's coverage on the crash can be found HERE.
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