Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board spent Saturday recovering the remaining wreckage from the site of Wednesday’s fatal crash of a Maui Air airplane on Lanai.
The two investigators had previously recovered both of the engines from the Piper PA-31 Navajo plane and delivered them to a secured site, where they will be inspected to see if there were any preflight issues that may have contributed to the crash. The wreckage recovered on Saturday will also be brought to a secured location for documentation.
The investigators are expected to complete the on-scene phase of their investigation by Monday, then return to the mainland to draft a preliminary report noting the facts and circumstances of the accident, according to NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson. The report, which will not include any determination of contributing factors or causes of the crash, is to be completed by Saturday.
A complete investigation typically takes about 12 months, Knudson said.
The recovery effort was complicated by the sheer size of the debris field about 500 feet from where the plane hit the ground to where the fuselage finally came to rest and by rainy conditions in the area.
Pilot Richard Rooney and Maui County Planning Department employees Kathleen Kern, project lead and senior planner on the Lanai Community Plan team, and Tremaine Balberdi, a secretary in the planning department, were killed in the crash. Three other Maui County workers planner Douglas Miller, geographic information systems analyst Mark King, and Deputy Corporation Counsel James Giroux were also injured, Miller and King critically.
The passengers were returning to Maui after attending a Lanai Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday night. The plane crashed in an area known as Miki Basin shortly after its takeoff around 9:05 p.m.
Giroux is credited with rescuing Miller and King from the burning wreckage and calling 911 for help. All three were flown to the Queen’s Medical Center for treatment.
Star-Advertiser reporter Michael Tsai and Wendy Osher of the Pacific Media Group on Maui contributed to this report.
