(Reuters)
– Two bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of an Amazon Prime
Air cargo plane that nosedived into a bay outside Houston on Saturday,
and a search was ongoing for a third victim, authorities said.
All
three people aboard the Boeing 767 cargo jetliner operated by Atlas Air
Worldwide died in the crash as it approached Houston’s George Bush
Intercontinental Airport, Atlas and Boeing Co said in statements on
Sunday.
Chambers
County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne told a news conference on Sunday that
two bodies had been recovered and the search continued for the third
person as well as the plane’s black boxes.
The
sheriff’s office released a video showing fragments of the aircraft and
cargo littering mudflats after the tide went out in the bay, exposing
more of the crash site.
U.S.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Robert Sumwalt
said the agency obtained about five seconds of security video from a
local jail that showed the crash.
“The
aircraft is in the video as it’s descending in a steep descent, a steep
nose down attitude,” Sumwault told the press briefing, adding that
there was no distress call.
Asked
by a reporter if the incident was “anything more than a plane crash,”
Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Perrye Turner said,
“that’s what we have right now.”
The
plane crashed at the north end of Trinity Bay near the small city of
Anahuac, about 20 miles (32 km) southeast of the airport around 12.40
p.m. (1340 EST) after taking off from Miami.
“This
is a sad time for all of us,” Bill Flynn, Atlas Air’s chief executive
officer, said in a statement. “Our team continues to work closely with
the NTSB, the FAA and local authorities on the ground in Houston.”
Atlas Air Worldwide has been operating Boeing 767 freighters on behalf of Amazon following a 2016 deal.
Boeing
said in a statement that it had sent a team to provide technical
assistance to the NTSB as it conducted its investigation.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Daniel Wallis & Simon Cameron-Moore)