NTSB: Plane crashed after wing fell off
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-21 19:03

Investigators went to Chalk's Ocean Airways' office to get the plane's maintenance and flight records, he said. The airline's owner, Jim Confalone, and general manager, Roger Nair, did not return calls for comment.

The plane's age is not necessarily a factor in the crash, Rosenker said.

Older airplanes have been a concern for federal safety officials since 1988, when fatigue cracking caused the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel off over Maui. A flight attendant was sucked out of the airplane and lost at sea. The Aloha 737 was 19 years old when the accident occurred, but it had taken off and landed more than 80,000 times.

That accident, and a subsequent law passed by Congress in 1991, prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to step up its requirements for inspections and maintenance of aging aircraft.

Eighteen passengers — including three infants — and two crew members were on the flight. At least 11 of the victims were returning home to the island of Bimini, many of them after Christmas shopping jaunts. Weeping islanders went house to house Tuesday to grieve.

"The island at this time is in an uproar," said Walter Stuart of Miami, who lost 11 family members in the crash.

The plane was a twin-engine Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard. It previously had few major reported incidents, and no passengers or crew were injured in any of them, according to the FAA.

Rosenker urged witnesses with amateur video or photographs of the crash to come forward.