Government officials have released new information regarding the flight that crashed on I-285 and killed all aboard in May of 2015.
A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report shows that the pilot of the aircraft had spoken with a mechanic about the single-engine airplane's performance just days before the fatal crash on one of the state's busiest interstates.
According to the report, the mechanic noticed a departure by the pilot where the craft cleared airplanes by about 50 feet. Shortly after the flight, the pilot called him and expressed his concern over the aircraft not climbing well.
The mechanic told the pilot that it was a warm day and that the aircraft was only a few hundred pounds under gross weight. He added that there was a slight tailwind.
The pilot later told him that he would look over the aircraft and perform a test flight the next day. The report states that the mechanic received a text the following day that the test flight went well but that the aircraft wasn't reaching the desired RPMs. However, it wasn't long after this that the pilot called the mechanic to say that everything was normal.
It was only days later that the aircraft crashed in Doraville along a stretch of I-285 shortly after takeoff from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport killing all aboard.
Officials said that 53-year-old Greg Byrd of Asheville, N.C., his sons, Phillip and Christopher Byrd, and Christopher's fiancee, Jackie Kulzer, all of Atlanta, were killed in the crash.
However, estimated weights of several items on the aircraft now reveal another detail that could have played some role in the crash.
NTSB officials believe the aircraft was about 24 pounds overweight.
The aircraft was rated for a maximum takeoff weight of 3,600 pounds. However, on the day the aircraft crashed, investigators believe it weighed about 3,624 pounds with all items included.
That put the aircraft, which had already had issues with takeoff just days before, about 24 pounds overweight.
The report makes no assumptions as to whether this was the factor that ultimately led to the fatal crash. However, the new details may soon help crash investigators find definitive answers in a crash that grabbed the attention of metro Atlanta just over a year before.
