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Morning News

Investigators Seek Cause of Weekend Plane Crash That Killed Oklahoma Students

Aired January 29, 2001 - 11:19 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Federal investigators are determining what role ice could may have played in the weekend plane crash that killed ten people, including two Oklahoma State basketball players.

CNN national correspondent Tony Clark is in Byers, Colorado, where the plane went down shortly after takeoff.

Our national correspondent Mike Boettcher is in Stillwater, Oklahoma, home of the Oklahoma State university basketball team.

First we're going to go to tony in Colorado, where we can tell the weather is still bad, for the latest on the investigation -- Tony.

TONY CLARK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, it really, it's very difficult for the investigators because of the blowing snow -- it's been snowing, it snowed overnight -- the winds, temperatures in, the last time I checked, the lower 20s. So it is not a good day for the investigators out here -- making it more difficult.

If you look behind me, it is a smaller number of investigators out there today. Among the things they want to do is look at the engines that are out there, the propellers. They also want to try to map the area, find out where different things -- mark where every single piece of debris was located. They had hoped today to take aerial photographs, but that simply isn't going to happen. And even if they could get in the air, with the snow that's happened overnight covering much of the debris, they wouldn't be able to get much done that way.

There are many things, though, that can be done. They were planning on going to Jefferson County Airport today. That's where the plane took off from. They want to find out if the plane was deiced before it took off. They want to interview line personnel there about what happened in the minutes and hours or so before the plane took off. They want to talk to pilots who were flying about that time or who, perhaps, talked to the crew before they took off. They can also talk to air traffic controllers about this flight, the flight that lasted less than 20 minutes

And said that there was simply no distress call. At one point as the flight was transferred from one control center to another, the pilot simply did not acknowledge the transfer, and shortly after that, the plane went off radar. They're also working with weather data. They want to make a computer model so that they know exactly the kind of weather that the plane experienced throughout the brief flight. Looking into the possibility that weather may have been a factor, at the time of takeoff, there was light snow, the temperature minus 4 degrees Celsius, there was visibility of about one mile. So they want to find out whether that played a role.

Right now there are simply a lot of questions, they are simply gathering the information, and it may be some time before they know what caused this plane to crash -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Tony Clark, thank you very much.

And now we want to go to Oklahoma State University. That's where our Mike Boettcher is standing by.

Mike, I understand the mood there very somber as many are in mourning at Stillwater.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's very true, Daryn.

You know, last year, "Sporting News" voted Stillwater, Oklahoma, the home of Oklahoma State, the best basketball town in the country, so you can imagine how hard this team was hit, because they live for this basketball team here in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

It will be a difficult process to go through. Students did return to classes today, but all around are reminders of the grief that they are experiencing. There are flowers placed around various points of this arena, flags at half-staff. So it's a very tough process.

As for the team, they have been meeting for the last two days with their coaches and with administrators and counselors here. They will meet again today. The object is not practice; the object is getting over the grief and trying to deal with the loss that they have experienced.

So right now, the buzz word, the number one thing here, is recovery, recovering from the grief for the Oklahoma State Cowboy basketball program -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Mike Boettcher, thank you very much, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

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