Denver Crash Probe May Take 6 Months

Federal transportation safety inspectors Wednesday packed up their on-site investigation into John Denver’s fatal airplane crash.

Teams of National Transportation Safety Board investigators cleaned up a few remaining details at the site of Sunday’s crash, which killed the 53-year-old singer instantly.

It could take six months to determine the cause of the crash because there is a backlog of other cases, NTSB spokesman Matt Furman said.

“There are approximately 2,000 aviation accidents in this country every year and the NTSB by law has to investigate all of them. This one goes into the pipeline,” he said.

Meanwhile Wednesday, the singer’s ashes were taken to Colorado, where a memorial service is scheduled, said Denver’s publicist Paul Shefrin.

Investigators said that although Denver might have been flying without a valid pilot’s license when he crashed, there were no signs that he had been drinking before the accident and the plane appeared sound.

“I checked with people that he played golf with from early morning through the entire day and no one saw him drinking so much as one beer,” Monterey County Sheriff Norman Hicks said.

NTSB investigators have recovered and assembled 90% of the plane that plunged 500 feet into Monterey Bay, including the engine. “There’s no sign of catastrophic failure,” said NTSB spokesman George Petterson, after an initial review of the engine and remains of the fuselage.