NTSB SAYS IT'S TOO EARLY TO TIE ICING TO COMMUTER PLANE CRASH.

Byline: Associated Press 

Flights in and out of Detroit's airport were icing up before a commuter plane trying to land in a snowstorm went into a roll and nose-dived into a field, killing all 29 people aboard.

While the weather suggested one avenue of inquiry into what brought Comair Flight 3272 down, National Transportation Safety Board member John Hammerschmidt said Friday it was too soon to speculate about the cause.

The plane, an Embraer 120 twin-engine turboprop operated by Comair, went down at dusk Thursday, crashing 18 miles short of Detroit Metropolitan Airport without any indication of trouble from the pilot.

By late Friday, the NTSB had found the two black box flight recorders that might yield clues to the cause of the accident. The devices, which will be shipped to Washington for analysis, showed some damage, but weren't in pieces, Hammerschmidt said.

Searchers also found both main landing gear and all propeller blades and flaps from the plane, he said. The gear and flaps were in the up, or retracted positions, which would be expected for a cruising aircraft, Hammerschmidt said.

Crews were still working to recover bodies from the burned and splintered wreckage.

There was a light snow, mist and light winds at the time of the crash, the NTSB said.

Planes at the Detroit airport had to be de-iced frequently in Thursday's snow and cold, airport spokesman Mike Conway said. ``We had precipitation all day, and the airlines were de-icing aircraft all day,'' he said.

In addition, just seven minutes before the crash, a pilot reported trace icing at 3,500 to 4,500 feet - about the same altitude the Comair plane en route from Cincinnati to Detroit was flying, USA Today reported.

Ice disrupts airflow over the wings and can cause planes to stall or roll. One witness to the Comair crash, Ted Rath, said he saw the plane roll three times before it crashed into a snowy field.

In 1994, an American Eagle ATR-72 that had been in a holding pattern in icy weather for nearly 40 minutes suddenly rolled and crashed near Roselawn, Ind., killing 68 people, and investigators blamed ice on the wings.