The National Transportation Safety Board is busy investigating to make sense of what happened to a plane, which was carrying Dale Earnhardt Jr., along with his wife, daughter and dog, that crashed.
According to a senior investigator from the NTSB, the plane had a firm landing and bounced twice. The plane then veered off the runway, went into a ditch. The Cessna then plowed through a chain-link fence and came to a stop on a road.
Ralph Hicks addressed the media in front of the accident scene on Friday. Hicks described the weather conditions at the time of the crash at the Elizabethton Municipal Airport, “good weather, calm winds.”
“The Airplane basically bounced at least twice before coming down hard on the right wing landing gear,” Hicks explained. “You can actually see the right wing landing gear collapsing on the video.”
Hicks also said that the plane had a voice cockpit recorder which has been sent to NTSB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. for further evaluation. Hicks says that after interviewing both pilots and the Earnhardt’s about what transpired, their answers were consistent with the recording.
Investigators will continue working on the crash site for the next two to three days and a preliminary report should be released in the next seven days on the NTSB website.
