'Everything' probed in jet crash
The NTSB had yet to determine possible causes. Six South Jerseyans and two pilots were killed.
Investigators have not narrowed their probe into the corporate-jet crash that killed eight people Thursday in Minnesota, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday.
"We are looking at everything," board member Steven Chealander said.
Six victims on the twin-engine Hawker 800 lived in South Jersey, including three executives working on the $2.5 billion Revel Entertainment casino in Atlantic City.
The chartered aircraft went down in a cornfield northwest of Owatonna Degner Regional Airport during a thunderstorm.
Investigators, who will analyze runway, weather and mechanical factors, plan to interview witnesses as well as people in Allentown, where the flight originated, and in Atlantic City, where it stopped briefly, Chealander said.
He said that the plane had touched down on the runway, but that witnesses had heard the engines power up as the pilots tried to ascend. The plane traveled about 1,000 feet before hitting an eight-foot-high antenna. Investigators did not know why the pilots had tried to get back into the air, Chealander said.
The victims were Tony Craig, 50, of Brigantine, N.J., and Chris Daul, 44, of Northfield, N.J., vice presidents of construction development for Revel; Lawrence Merrigan, 62, of Absecon, N.J., Revel director of field operations; Tishman Construction project manager Karen Sandland, 44, of Galloway, N.J.; Marc Rosenberg of Margate, N.J., chief operating officer of APG International, a Glassboro glass company; APG assistant project manager Alan Barnett of Absecon; and East Coast Jets Inc. pilots Clark Keefer, 40, of Bethlehem, Pa., and Dan D'Ambrosio, 27, of Hellertown, Pa.