Probe Focuses on Plane Engines in Tower Crash
Crews worked Sunday to remove from a forest the charred wreckage of the commuter plane that crashed last week and killed former Sen. John Tower of Texas and 22 other people.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have focused on the plane’s engines, primarily because of witness reports that the Atlantic Southeast Airlines plane made unusual noises before it went down Friday.
Crews began removing the plane parts investigators wish to see, said NTSB spokesman Michael Benson. “Parts of it they may look at closely, but not all of it,” he said. “They will be looking at the engines.”
Fire on the plane while it dove into the ground “was clearly a fuel fire,” said Susan Coughlin, vice chairman of the NTSB.
She said four eyewitnesses who were interviewed “reported seeing the aircraft veer sharply to one side and descend very abruptly.”
In addition to Tower, the crash also killed his daughter, Marian Tower, 35, astronaut Manley (Sonny) Carter Jr. of Houston and Dr. Nicholas Davies of Atlanta, president-elect of the American College of Physicians.
The White House said Sunday that President Bush and his wife, Barbara, will attend a memorial service today in Dallas for Tower and his daughter.
Tower was chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
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