Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) awaited the arrival in Washington. D.C., on Monday of the flight data recorder (FDR) from the Atlas Air cargo jet that crashed February 23 while approaching to land at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). Search crews located the FDR on March 3, two days after recovering the jet’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) from the shallow coastal waters of Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas.
The NTSB investigators expect information from the two so-called "black boxes" will help them gain insight into the mysterious incident that claimed the lives of two Atlas Air pilots and a jumpseating regional airline pilot. Captain Ricky Blakely, first officer Conrad Jules Aska and Sean Archuleta, a Mesa Airlines captain commuting to Houston, died when their Boeing 767-300ER converted freighter crashed into the muddy bay approximately 40 miles southeast of IAH.
Operating a scheduled flight from Miami International Airport (MIA), Atlas Air Flight 3591 was on a seemingly routine approach when the jet suddenly plunged out of approximately 6,000 feet. Archived air traffic control communications indicate the crew tried to navigate around a narrow band of storm activity along their flight path, with no apparent distress or mayday calls transmitted before the jet’s dive into the bay.
The accident aircraft, converted to freighter use in 2016, entered commercial airline service nearly 27 years ago. It was one of 30 767s operated for Amazon.com's Prime Air subsidiary.
A Houston-area television station last week released video footage from a nearby school’s security camera of the flight’s final seconds, showing the airframe seemingly intact and in a steep, nose-down descent for approximately two seconds before disappearing into dense cloud cover. The footage corroborates online radar and flight tracking data, as well as investigators’ statements regarding an earlier, unreleased video obtained by the NTSB.
Meanwhile, search crews continue to comb through a debris field largely contained within 100- by 200-yard area in the bay. NTSB video footage from the scene shows remnants of Amazon packages strewn amongst the wreckage showing few readily identifiable aircraft components, including the jet’s retracted main landing gear.
NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt is among the investigators joined by local officials, regional entities including the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in working to determine the cause of the crash. The latter agency’s ongoing presence has raised some questions given the FBI's mission to investigate criminal activity, although the circumstances that brought down the cargo aircraft remain unknown.