Pilots wife says he seemed normal before flight

8/14/2010 07:10:10 PM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The wife of the pilot in this week's deadly Alaska plane crash spoke with her husband by phone several times in the days before the flight and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, the National Transportation Safety Board's chairwoman said Saturday.

Pilot Theron Smith's wife told investigators her husband stayed for several days at a corporate lodge in southwest Alaska and she talked to him often by phone, Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said at a news conference.

Smith was flying the float plane from the lodge to a fishing camp with former Sen. Ted Stevens and seven others on board when it crashed into a mountainside Monday about 20 miles north of Dillingham. Stevens, Smith and three others were killed.

The cause of the crash hasn't been determined. Investigators have spoken with two of the four survivors, and one survivor has told officials he didn't notice any changes in the plane's pitch or hear any unusual engine sounds right before the plane went down.

Hersman hasn't identified the survivors who spoke with officials. She said Saturday that the conditions of the other two survivors has prevented investigators from interviewing them.

Former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe, his son, Kevin O'Keefe, Jim Morhard and 13-year-old William "Willy" Phillips Jr. survived the crash.

Hersman said plane wreckage, including the engine, has been brought to a hangar in Dillingham.