Crews Gather Wreckage of Highway Plane Crash [VIDEO]

Salvage crews on Wednesday removed a large section of plane from a tree a quarter-mile from where the aircraft crashed in the median of a major highway, killing all five aboard.

The crews cleared debris scattered over at least a half-mile as investigators sought clues to why the single-engine plane went down Tuesday morning on Interstate 287, scattering debris across the roadway and wooded median.

The National Transportation Safety Board planned to examine the wreckage at a warehouse in Delaware as part of an investigation that it said could take up to a year.

Shortly before the high-performance turboprop plane went into an apparent uncontrolled descent, the pilot was discussing ice conditions with an air traffic controller. The NTSB said investigators don't yet know if weather played a role.

Killed were two investment bankers heading for Georgia, a wife of one of them, and two children. No one on the ground was hurt.

Investigators said the plane wasn't required to have a black box, which would have recorded flight data. But they said they would be searching for other memory devices, including GPS, collision avoidance systems or any device with a recordable chip that might yield more information.

The plane disappeared from radar at 17,500 feet, about 14 minutes into its flight from Teterboro Airport to DeKalb-Peachtree Airport near Atlanta.

Reports of severe icing at 14,000 feet had been received by air traffic controllers.

Ice can form on airplanes when temperatures are near freezing and there is visible moisture, such as clouds or rain. The ice adds weight to an aircraft, and rough accumulations known as rime interrupt the flow of air over wings. In extreme cases, a plane can lose so much lift that it falls out of the sky.

The New York investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. said two of its managing directors, Jeffrey Buckalew, 45, and Rakesh Chawla, 36, as well as Buckalew's wife, Corinne, and two children, Jackson and Meriwether, were on the plane. Buckalew was the registered owner and had a pilot's license.

Witnesses described an out-of-control descent.

Will Keyser, who works in maintenance at the Spring Brook Country Club in Morristown, is used to hearing small planes fly over en route to nearby Morristown Memorial Airport. He was near the 13th hole Tuesday when he heard a loud plane overhead. He said the plane pitched back and forth, and for a moment he thought it was a stunt pilot.

"It was kind of rolling and making circles -- 'cause I've seen air shows before -- so I thought: `Oh, OK;' but then he finally did a nosedive and we realized that was completely wrong."

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Courtesy Associated Press