3 confirmed dead after Boeing 767 cargo plane's nose dive into Trinity Bay

Atlas Air Capt. Ricky Blakely was killed when Atlas Air flight 3591 crashed into the shallow waters of Trinity Bay on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019, near Anahuac. His remains were recovered Feb. 26. Atlas Air Capt. Ricky Blakely was killed when Atlas Air flight 3591 crashed into the shallow waters of Trinity Bay on Saturday, Feb. 23, 2019, near Anahuac. His remains were recovered Feb. 26. Photo: Chambers County Sheriff's Office Photo: Chambers County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 63 Caption Close 3 confirmed dead after Boeing 767 cargo plane's nose dive into Trinity Bay 1 / 63 Back to Gallery

Investigators scoured the shallow waters of Trinity Bay Sunday, trying to determine why a Boeing 767 cargo plane fell out of the sky the day before, killing three and leaving a trail of debris.

Capt. Sean Archuleta of Houston, Capt. Ricky Blakely of Indiana and First Officer Conrad Jules Aska of Antigua were being mourned Sunday by friends and family on social media. Authorities have not confirmed the identities, but did say that all three on board died when Atlas Air flight 3591 crashed near Anahuac shortly before 12:45 p.m. Saturday. Two of the bodies have been recovered, authorities said Sunday.

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Archuleta, 36, had been living in The Woodlands for a few years as a pilot for Mesa Airlines. He was a new father and had just landed his dream job at United Airlines, said Don Dalton, his roommate of three years.

He was supposed to start next week and caught a ride in the jump seat of the cargo plane to return to Houston from Miami.

"He got his dream, almost," Dalton said. "Now he'll never fly it ... that's the part that kills me."

Archuleta's wife and children live in Colombia. Dalton was at the scene Sunday in case he was needed to identify Archuleta's body. He said Archuleta's wife had been contacted.

"She's devastated," he said. "They just had their baby. I'm not an emotional guy, but this tore me up today. I lost a guy that I truly looked forward to opening the door and seeing. I miss the guy. I miss him already."

The plane, contracted by Amazon Prime Air Fleet and operated by New York-based Atlas Air, was just minutes from arriving at Bush Intercontinental Airport when it crashed into shallow water. Parts disintegrated on impact, and the largest piece police have recovered is 50 feet long.

"This is a sad day for the entire Mesa Family as we mourn the loss of Captain Sean Archuleta," said Jonathan Ornstein, chairman and chief executive officer of Mesa Airlines. "Our thoughts are with Sean's family, the families of the two Atlas Air pilots, and the whole Atlas Air organization. This is a loss for all of aviation."

Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne described the scene as "total devastation" hours after the crash and urged witnesses and people who find debris to contact 1-800-CALL-FBI.

A five-second clip of the plane nosediving into the water was captured on a security camera at the Chambers County jail.

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Real-time flight data published by FlightAware.com shows the aircraft departed Miami International Airport at 10:33 a.m. Central Time. At 12:38 p.m., the aircraft descended 11,750 feet in about 30 seconds.

The Federal Aviation Administration lost radar and radio contact with the plane when it was about 30 miles southeast of Bush, the agency said. Some witnesses reported hearing the aircraft's engines sputtering, while others reported hearing a sound resembling a thunderclap, Hawthorne said. It crashed into the bay shortly before 12:45 p.m., according to the FAA.

The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent federal agency that investigates civil aviation accidents, will handle the investigation.

Investigators called the process ahead "painstaking" and estimated it would take over a year. There was no distress call or hazmat materials on the plane. Pieces of the wings and landing gear have been identified in the debris field, which spans 200 yards by 100 yards, authorities said.

They are continuing to search for "perishable evidence" and the black box, which records flight data and voices in the cockpit. "We have to get those recorders," said Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "We will stay here as long as it takes to get that."

Black boxes emit ultrasonic "pings" to make them easier to find after a crash, but the muddy landscape could prevent the pingers from being heard. Sumwalt said that if that is the case, they may need to physically comb the landscape with scuba divers or even dredge the area.

A storm band moved through the Houston area at the time of the crash, though heavy rain is nothing new for pilots approaching Bush Intercontinental. Air traffic controllers warned the pilots of the rain, which was significant in spots. In some of the last communication between the plane and the ground, one of the pilots says he will aim west of the heaviest rain. Controllers warn him of departing planes headed that way.

"Oh, OK, then we'll go on the east side, just go ahead and direct us," one of the pilots says.

After some back and forth among the controllers, one last transmission comes from the plane's pilots, with one of them saying "OK."

Moments later, air traffic controllers continue to hail the plane but receive no communications. They start hailing other planes in the area, asking if they can see anything in the area of the plane's location.

It could take months to unravel why the plane nose-dived into the bay, officials said.

"We urge everyone to not become involved in speculation or rushes to judgment," Capt. David Bourne, Teamsters airline division director said in a statement. "We are very fortunate to have the experts from the FAA, NTSB, FBI and so many other organizations that will; in due time, determine the cause of this accident."

The Boeing 767 is a large twin-engine jet airliner used to transport cargo or up to 280 passengers. They are a workhorse of American aviation with more than 1,000 in service, nearly 600 of which are the third-generation extended-range version that crashed into Trinity Bay.

The aircraft that crashed Saturday was built in 1992 and was converted to a cargo plane in recent years, FAA records show.

Boeing 767s have been involved in six fatal crashes since its debut in 1981, according to research compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation. The vast majority of fatalities have been related to terrorism, notably the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Other incidents have been related to pilot error, such as 2002 Air China Flight that crashed into a hillside in South Korea during a storm.

A handful of times, the GE engines — the same as the ones on the Atlas Air plane — burst apart, spraying debris. In a 2016 incident, an engine on an American Airlines plane leaving Chicago's O'Hare Airport burst apart in a fiery incident that led the pilots to quickly abort takeoff. The "uncontained failure" of the engine, as it is was determined by the NTSB, sent parts of the engine more than half-mile from runway.

Following the Chicago crash, General Electric urged airlines to inspect the turbine discs — the blades the convert the engine's combustion into thrust, similar to a windmill — on both the high and low pressure turbines inside the engines.

In August, the FAA required inspections using ultrasound equipment to detect cracks in the turbine discs.

Witnesses Saturday told television stations they heard a thunderclap or sonic boom sound around the time of plane's plunge into the bay. In the 2016 Chicago incident, those on the plane said the engine burst apart with a loud bang. The pilot, in his testimony to the NTSB, likened it to hitting a pothole at 115 mph.

A 767 operated by Air New Zealand that had just departed Brisbane lost its left engine in a similar incident in December 2002. The pilots were able to turn that plane at about 10,000 feet and make an emergency landing back at the airport.

No one was seriously injured in the two incidents. The 767 is capable of flying with only one of its two engines.

Reporters Dug Begley and Andrea Leinfelder contributed to this report.

rebecca.schuetz@chron.com; twitter.com/raschuetz