UPDATE- Baker Louisiana Plane Crash

A National Transportation and Safety Board official said Saturday that the report outlining the cause of Friday’s fatal plane crash in Baker may not come out for about a year because of the meticulous nature of the investigation and the sheer amount of data that must be combed through.

Craig Hatch, an air safety investigator for the NTSB, said authorities would try to remove the wreckage of the plane Sunday afternoon and bring it to a large facility where they will lay out the parts for examination while working to discover the cause of the crash that claimed one life.

Hatch conducted the on-scene investigation Saturday, focusing on documenting the state of the plane and surrounding area to see if anything is missing from the wreckage.

"When the airplane is removed, we’re going to come out of here with a plan as to what kind of follow-up exams we’ll need, if we need them,” Hatch said.

The crash occurred at 1:12 p.m. Friday in Baker when a twin-engine King Air 200 clipped the roof of a home on Rue Nicole and crashed into two houses on Rue Jennifer.

The plane, with only pilot John Fowler, 71, of Brookhaven, Miss., aboard, crashed shortly after taking off from Baton Rouge Metro Airport.

The East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Office had not forensically identified the victim as of Saturday evening.

George Johnson, 73, saw the plane gliding through the air Friday while he was standing in his backyard and immediately called 911.

"I just looked up and I saw the plane, I knew I wasn’t dreaming,” Johnson said Saturday.

He said there was no sound, the plane was just gliding, until it crashed and he heard three successive explosions.

Another Baker resident, DeNair Waddell, 25, said most of the activity relating to Friday afternoon’s plane crash had died down by Saturday afternoon, leaving her hoping to regain some sense of normalcy pretty soon.

"I’m glad they’re keeping control of the onlookers, because honestly, I just don’t want people walking around the neighborhood,” Waddell said.

Some of the residents in the neighborhood left after the crash, including those whose houses were damaged, but most stayed and were going about their daily routines, she said.

Waddell lives near the houses on Rue Jennifer where the plane came down.

Authorities had Rue Jennifer blocked off on Saturday, while Rue Nicole remained partially blocked until about 2 p.m.

Kala Turner, who lives on Rue Nicole, across the street from the two damaged houses, said curious visitors to the neighborhood drove up and down the street all day to see the damage.

She estimated about 15 to 20 people an hour had been driving by to look at the damaged houses on Rue Nicole once the tape blocking the road was taken down.

She said it was easy to distinguish between those who live in the neighborhood and those who had come to slowly drive by to get a glimpse of the plane crash damage.

"The neighborhood’s so small, we know who lives here and who their visitors are,” Turner said.

She said some people would walk down Rue Nicole and then duck under the police tape that cordoned off the area to get a closer look at the two damaged houses.

Baker Police Chief Mike Knaps said that during the four hours following the crash, East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputies and Zachary Police Department personnel answered general calls in Baker while Baker police officers responded to the scene.

Knaps said that Baton Rouge Metro Airport annually invites area law enforcement authorities and first responders to the airport to offer training and discussion of procedures to follow in the event of an airplane crash.

That training and planning paid off Friday, Knaps said, "It was as smooth and well as it could be.”

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Source: The Advocate