Carson Air flight 66 may have broken up mid-flight
Investigators with the Transportation Safety Board plan to remove wreckage this weekend
The Transportation Safety Board says evidence suggests a plane that crashed north of Vancouver earlier this week may have broke up in mid-flight.
The agency said the twin-engine plane dropped 2,400 metres to about 900 metres in less than 20 seconds and the crew didn't declare an emergency.
Based on the way the wreckage was scattered, inspectors believe the plane had broken up before impact with the mountainside.
Investigators plan to spend the weekend removing the wreckage and taking it to a facility where it will be examined further.
The plane was not equipped with cockpit voice or flight data recording systems. As a result, the cause of the crash will have to be pieced together from the physical evidence.
The bodies of the cargo plane's two pilots, 34-year-old Robert Brandt and 32-year-old Kevin Wang, were found along with the wreckage of the Carson Air flight Tuesday morning.
The missing cargo plane took off from Vancouver International Airport at 6:43 a.m. PT Monday heading for Prince George Airport. But air traffic control lost radar contact with the flight at 7:08 a.m., when the plane was crossing the North Shore Mountains.
