We Have the "How", but Not the "Why"
Unlike the Zweibrucken crash, the cause of the Abbotsford accident was determined without too much trouble.
The rear section of the Jackrabbit had broken away and survived relatively intact. Examination of the engine showed that there was some damage that was consistant with ingesting a foreign object.
A former investigator explains"
"Dismantling the engine revealed a mangled piece of sheet metal that clearly did not belong there, but it looked very similar to the metal used in the aircraft's intake trunking.
Very little of the forward fuselage had survived the crash, so we focused on comparing the sheet metal fragment to the intake trunking of intact aircraft. Metalurgical analysis confirmed it was a section of intake trunking.
As we found the sheet metal fairly deep in the engine, we suspected that it was not the result of the crash, but a contributing factor to it.
We felt confident in saying that a section of intake trunking had detatched and caused extensive damage to the engine, resulting in a loss of control of the aircraft and subsequent collision.
Why it had happened was still something for us to determine."
Fearful Witness
In early September, a witness to the Zweibrucken crash came forth.
A 14 year old girl from Oberaurbach, a short distance north of Contwig, claimed she had seen the crash as she was riding her bicycle along a minor road that connected Contwig and Oberaurbach.
The former police officer who took her report recalls:
"I remember the day very clearly.
I had been sent to the girl's school based on a call from the headmistress there that one of their students claimed to have seen the crash. I was sceptical and thought it might be a kid thinking they were making a clever prank. My scepticism vanished the moment I saw the girl.
She had clearly been crying, she also looked pale and exhausted. Not at all what you would expect of a kid at the start of the school year.
She had wanted to report the crash as soon as she got back home from visiting a friend in Contwig, but her parents had forbidden her from doing so. As they were very strict disciplinarians with their daughter, she obeyed them unquestioningly.
When the school year started, the headmistress could tell there was something wrong and decided to ask the girl a few questions. The girl broke down in tears and told her headmistress, who then called us.
The poor girl was a mess of guilt and fear. Guilt that she hadn't reported it earlier and fear of what her parents would do now that she had disobeyed them.
She was clearly comfortable in the company of her headmistress, so I took her report of the crash at the school rather than taking them to the police station to do it.
She showed me on a map what road she'd been riding on and approximately where she was along it when the crash happened.
According to her, she stopped when she heard the engine noise of the plane change. She knew the sound of the Prairie Rattler well, so the sudden change in sound caught her attention.
Just after the engine sound changed, she said she saw something fall from the plane. According to her, it looked like it came off the belly of the plane, just a bit behind the wings.
On the map, she pointed to a small area of trees where she thought the falling part landed.
The sheer level of fear the girl had of what her parents might do now that she had reported the crash was very unsettling to me. I decided I had to take the girl to the station for her own protection until we could send officers and someone from the regional child welfare office to talk to her parents and get an idea of her living situation.
Once I was back at the station and made the arrangements to have the girl's home checked, I called the base at Zweibrucken to say I had a witness account for them."
Based on the girl's report, investigators from Zweibrucken went to where she said the part from the aircraft fell. Against their expectations, they were able to recover it.
A former member of the crash investigation team:
"What the girl had seen fall off the aircraft was the access door to the hydraulic and starter panels.
Losing that door would certainly have made the aircraft harder to control due to disruption of airflow in that area. Given that the aircraft would have still been climbing, it would have been a very critical phase of flight and a very bad time to have something come loose from the plane.
Unfortunately, very little of the hydraulics and starter panel survived the crash. We still couldn't say concretely what the cause of the crash was, but we had something new to work with and keep the investigation going."
