NTSB Removing Wreckage From Plane Crash Site

The investigation is ongoing into why a plane went down last week over Lake Hartwell, killing all four people on board.

Ralph Hicks with the National Transportation Safety Board said that crews were on the scene Thursday, attempting to extract debris from the crash site in a ravine on the Oconee County, South Carolina side of the lake.

Hicks said that the location of the main part of the plane provides a challenge in removing it for further investigation.

“We are using a heavy-lift helicopter to remove the wreckage from the woods,” said Addis. “It is in a ravine-type area and to remove it successfully without doing any more damage to it so we can preserve the evidence, we are going to be lifting it out with a helicopter and transporting it to a facility near Atlanta where we can lay it out properly, put all the parts back together for re-construction.”

Hicks said Oconee County, South Carolina Coroner Karl Addis was also on the scene as part of the plane removal Thursday.

“It is not uncommon to have the coroner in place when we are recovering wreckage, in case there are personal effects, things like that, which may be recovered because of the inaccessibility of some parts of the airplane, because of how it was situated,” said Hicks. “That is not unusual.”

Hicks said that investigators will work to collect as much debris as possible from the crash site, but may not be able to collect it all if it is in the lake.

Debris was spread across Stephens County, in the Spring Branch and Currahee Point areas, the lake itself, and in Oconee County, South Carolina.

Late last Friday afternoon, the single-engine Piper plane went down over Lake Hartwell with four people on board headed to last Saturday’s Clemson-Notre Dame football game.

71-year-old Charles D. Smith, 44-year old Scott A. Smith, 54-year-old Tony L. Elliott, and 51-year-old Scott D. Bibler, all of Warsaw, Indiana, died.

(Dick Mangrum, WGOG Radio in Walhalla, contributed to this report)