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Audio Transcript

I can recall walking over to the crater and standing. And there was an NTSB official that was standing next to me that was in charge of their group.

And I looked at him and I said, "Where's the airplane?"

And he said, "It's in that hole."

And I said, "No, that's impossible."

And he said, "No, it's not. It's physics."

The speed of the aircraft and the fact that it's a hollow tube. It's like a straw.

The energy that went into that crash. He said the materials we're looking for are in that hole.

And they showed me a mark in the ground where he thought the tail would hit because it was inverted.

He said there are the engines, out there. The wings would have opened up. The fuel would have spilled. That's why you see the fires in the tree line. All the trees are charred.

And so, you learn those sorts of things if you've never been to a crash site before. You kind of try to pick up very quickly what's going on and what you're dealing with.

And he, obviously, had been to many crashes and knew what to look for.

And the people that initially got there and looked around had the same questions I did: "Where is the plane?" "Where are the materials from this airplane?"

It was hard to believe that they were contained in that hole, other than for a few parts.

And as they started to excavate you realized, yeah, there are pieces coming out of there that are obviously pieces of aircraft.