Former Sacramento Pilot, Flight Instructor Shares Insight On SF Plane Crash

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - New video of the plane crash at San Francisco International Airport is providing National Transportation Safety Board investigators with some insight into what went wrong, and has many more experts weighing in.

The video helps tell the story of what happened moments before the fatal touchdown.

Scott Miller is a former pilot and flight instructor at Sacramento Executive Airport. Regardless of what happened, he says the four pilots didn't have enough time to react.

"It was something that came on really quickly, and they didn't have a lot of time to analyze and deal with it," said Miller.

He believes the pilots did what they could at the time, quickly pulling the plane back up to try and land properly -- know a go-around.

Video of the plane shows the nose start to go up, but a second and half later the plane crash lands.

"A second and a half is not enough time to properly execute a go-around," said Miller. "The thing that bothers me is how late in the landing sequence they tried to initiate the go-around."

But the former pilot wonders if a mechanical error was to blame. According to the NTSB, five seconds before the crash the pilots were alerted the angle of the plane's wings weren't giving it enough lift.

"There could have been a problem with the thrust of the engine. For some reason the engines weren't putting out enough thrust," said Miller.

Investigators will try to figure out if the plane's slow speed caused the crash, but Miller says that may have been why so many survived.

"Because of that low energy that went a long way in making this a survivable accident," he said.

NTSB says it could take as long as one year to discover the true cause of the crash.