LJWorld.com

• Email
• iPod-friendly
• Print

Kansas City, Mo. — Federal transportation officials say it could be more than a year before they know why a twin-engine plane crashed into an affluent neighborhood of suburban Kansas City last week, killing all five people aboard.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators finished their work Saturday night at the crash site in Overland Park, Kan., NTSB spokesman Mitch Gallo said. He said it was too early to speculate about a possible cause of the Friday morning crash.

NTSB officials say it often takes between 12 and 18 months before the agency makes its final determination about what caused a plane crash.

The Cessna 421C Golden Eagle III crashed shortly after taking off from Johnson County Executive Airport. It clipped a street lamp and several trees as it broke up, then hit the home of former Kansas City Royals pitcher Jason Grimsley.

Killed in the crash were Armour D. Stephenson Jr., 49, of Lee's Summit; his wife, Shirley F. Stephenson, 46, of Lee's Summit; Lewis Bradley Smith, 73, of Kansas City, Mo.; pilot James L. Kingston, 60, of Stilwell, Kan.; and Kevin W. Holzer, 50, also of Stilwell.

The crash left a 600-yard trail of debris, which included body parts of the five victims. Overland Park Fire Chief Dennis Meyers said the destruction was the worst he has seen during his 30-year tenure with the department, and it took an emotional toll on dozens of his firefighters.

"They're used to dealing with car wrecks and fire fatalities," Meyers said. "What affected them the most was the magnitude of the destruction. They're not used to dealing with that, but if it didn't affect them, I would be concerned about them."

Meyers said 15 to 20 firefighters attended a debriefing meeting Sunday, conducted to ensure they were mentally and physically able to handle the tragedy. Many of them helped pick up "hundreds if not thousands" of body parts among the plane's debris, he said.

Officials remove debris at the site of a fatal plane crash in Overland Park. The National Transportation Safety Board has concluded its work at the site, but does not expect to determine the cause of the crash for at least a year.

"They're not really trained to do that kind of thing," Meyers said. "But we had some firefighters who did what they had to do. It's amazing to me what we pay city employees and ask them to do."

Friday's crash was the deadliest in Kansas since 1983, when five people were killed in a crash near Greensburg, according to NTSB records. Kansas has never had a plane crash in which more than seven people died, the NTSB said.

Federal officials continue searching for the cause of several 2004 plane crashes in Missouri, which claimed 35 lives, including an October crash near Kirksville in which 13 people died. The NTSB said it could still be another year before officials release results of their investigation into that crash.

The 35 fatalities last year were the most for Missouri since 51 people were killed in 1973, including 38 aboard an Ozark Air Lines jet that crashed near St. Louis.