It could be weeks before investigators are able to move aircraft wreckage from the rugged site of a Southeast Alaska plane crash that killed nine people on a sightseeing tour out of Ketchikan Thursday.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have been at the site of the crash, about 25 miles northeast of Ketchikan, since Saturday, said Clint Johnson, office chief for the NTSB's Alaska office.
Bodies of the nine victims -- eight tourists and the pilot -- were removed from the wreckage Saturday and will be sent for examination in Anchorage, Johnson said.
But the 10-passenger de Havilland Otter is clinging to a steep slope forested with cedar and hemlock 800 feet above Ella Lake, making it difficult to remove for the reconstruction and analysis that investigators hope will lead them to a cause for the crash, one of the deadliest in recent Alaska history.
Brice Banning, the lead NTSB investigator on scene, said accessing the site takes an "arduous" 45-minute uphill hike from a drop-off point. Investigators will spend another full day there Monday, Banning said.
They want to avoid cutting the wreckage into pieces, Johnson said. So it will likely stay in place until a helicopter specially designed to lift heavy loads is available to remove it "in one piece," he said.
It may take two to three weeks for the necessary helicopter to arrive, he said.
In addition to on-scene wreckage analysis, investigators are also looking at other factors that could have contributed to the crash, including weather.
Investigators have been interviewing other pilots flying in the area that day, Banning said.
Meanwhile, Holland America has suspended the Misty Fjords shore excursion operated by Promech, Sally Andrews, the cruise line's vice president of public relations, wrote in an email Sunday.
"We continue to offer other flightseeing excursions in various Alaska ports with other operators," she wrote.
Passengers underway on current Alaska sailings have been "given the opportunity to cancel any flightseeing excursion for any reason with a full refund if they change their minds," she wrote.