The National Transportation Safety Board completed much of its crash site investigation Tuesday. Investigators removed wreckage and other evidence that will taken to Atlanta where board representatives said the investigation will continue.
A final report on the crash, however, may not be complete for another year.
While the investigation continues, there are questions about time, specifically the time between when the helicopter went down and when dispatch alerted emergency responders.
"From the time that we received that phone call of official notification about the same time we had our responders down there looking for the aircraft,” said Georgetown Emergency Management Division Director, Sam Hodge, “the official notification came to us at approximately 1:20 am."
Joel Hochhalter with Texas based Omniflight Helicopter Inc. told News 13 Tuesday that their protocols of alerting officials were handled properly.
Company representatives whose chopper the crew was operating the night of the crash confirmed the breakdown of the timeline that indicates that there was a gap of 1 hour and 27 minutes between the time a dispatcher in Conway lost contact with the chopper crew and the time local officials were alerted of the missing aircraft.
The helicopter departed Charleston at 11:08 p.m Friday night and the last contact between the pilot and dispatch in Conway was at 11:16pm.
“As it comes to what happened prior to us receiving the phone call I really can't answer that," said Hodge.
To get more answers, News 13 also checked with Air Force rescue center in Florida who said that at 12:43 am LifeGuard Helo Operations notified them that their helicopter was overdue.
Then just 11 minutes later the center activated state civil air patrol to assist in the search.
Two minutes after that, the center notified South Carolina emergency management department of the missing chopper.
A half hour later, at 1:12 a.m. the Charleston County Sheriff's Office was notified .
Ten minutes after that the Georgetown County Sheriff’s office was notified.
At 2:35 a.m. Georgetown County Coroner was told to report to the scene and at 2:50 a.m. the center was notified by E.M.D that the crash site had been located.
On Monday Hodge said that there is confusion with the time zone difference.
"Everyone needs to keep in mind that the Omniflight Corporation is based out of Texas and we just need to make sure that the times are all the same and that we all are using East Coast times versus another time zone," Hodge said.
NTSB investigators also found three witnesses Tuesday who lead investigator Todd Gunther said will be questioned about whether they heard or saw anything before or after the crash happened.
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