National Transportation Safety Board investigators are now joining those with the Federal Aviation Administration to determine what caused a small plane to crash on Thursday into Lewisville Lake, killing a female passenger.
One question which remains unanswered is why the landing gear was deployed at the time of the crash.
Aviation experts say typically a pilot will retract landing gear after take off and never deploy it again, especially for a lake landing, which seemed to be the case yesterday.
The pilot remains hospitalized.
Family and friends of the woman killed in the crash, 41-year-old Kristin Kolby, are trying to come to terms with the tragedy.
Friends say Kolby worked for the pilot of the plane at his aviation business in Addison.
They said she agreed to her boss's request to fly with him in his newly-purchased plane, as he celebrated his birthday.
The last text she sent to her closest friend said: "I'm going up. Keep your fingers crossed."
The pilot's name has not yet been released.
He was, in part, saved by the two brothers boating nearby who pulled him from the water.
"[I] pulled him up on my back and swam to my boat. I put him on the back and did CPR on him. He wasn't breathing. His eyes were blue. I did CPR for about two minutes, mouth to mouth, and he started throwing up and started breathing," said Johnny Hopkins.
Johnny and Nathan Hopkins saw the airplane hovering over the lake about 4 p.m. and watched it descend onto the placid water, near Stewart Peninsula Park in The Colony.
"He flew by and belly-flopped," Johnny Hopkins said.
He said the plane landed on its pontoons and flipped upside-down, submerging its cabin.
Friends of Kolby said she too had been bitten by the flying bug. Her closest friends say she was right on schedule to get her pilot's license in time for her birthday, April 3rd.
E-mail: cvega@wfaa.com
