The minimal remains of the aircraft that crashed at Edwards AFB base yesterday, killing its crew of 8 people, are under investigation to find the cause of the crash.
The plane crashed and burned just seconds after takeoff, leaving a black scar on the concrete runway, according to pictures of the site.
Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline pilot and aviation and engineering professor at Ohio State University, told KNX News’ Pete Demetriou that this type of crash points immediately to two potential causes.
“When we think of power problems, we think of flight control problems,” he said. “Those are the top two that usually are the ones that historically have surfaced of playing a significant role.”
He said this may have been a multiple-engine failure situation or a flight control system malfunction, but electronic evidence may show a clearer picture of what the crew tried to do seconds before the crash.
“Cameras on buildings, any cameras that are on board the aircraft, especially if it's a research aircraft, they may have additional cameras, possibly on the flight deck, flight data recorders, cockpit burst recorders,” said Pruchnicki.
These instruments will bring to light the situation before the crash, which Pruchnicki said looks like it happened very quickly, with not enough time to solve the problem.
The nature of the systems aboard the aircraft that were being tested will also be analyzed to see if they could have contributed to the crash.
The preliminary cause for the crash could be determined in one month or so, but a complete investigation may take six months or more to complete.
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