The final Transportation Safety Board report into a plane crash outside Sundre that killed three men in September 2010 is expected to be released early in the new year.
Senior investigator John Pearson said last week that a draft report of the findings has been sent to family members for their comments, and that those comments are now being considered in the preparation of the final report.
The Transportation Safety Board must approve the report before it is made public. Until that time, the findings must by law remain confidential, he said.
A Cirrus SR-22 slammed into a cattle pasture about eight kilometres northwest of Sundre and burst into flames on Sept. 24, 2010.
Chuck Matson, 51, of Calgary, Stephen Brosseau, 43, of Spruce Grove, and a 42-year-old Edmonton man died in the crash.
In preparing the final report into the accident, investigators have looked at the aircraft and its maintenance records, the weather at the time of the crash, personnel and other factors, he said.
He explained that the investigation has been particularly technical because the aircraft did not have a ‘black box' flight recorder on board.
“In this case we had some good data from the on-board recording system in the airplane,” he said. “The navigation system recorded some data points and we had some pretty good data points. There is no black box but this is the next best thing. It gave us some pretty good information to establish some characteristics of the last flight.”
An eyewitness to the crash said he saw the plane spiral into the ground and burst into flames. All three men died at the scene.
