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- NTSB official: Stall warning sounded before plane crashed
- An investigation is just beginning into the crash, he says
- 6 people were killed, including a mother and her two young sons
- The pilot was involved in another aircraft accident in 2010
(CNN) -- A stall warning went off in the cockpit before a plane plunged into a Maryland subdivision, killing six people in a fiery crash.
But Robert Sumwalt, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators haven't yet pinpointed what happened when the automated aerodynamic stall warning first sounded. And they don't know what caused Monday's crash.
"This is really just day one of the boots on the ground phase of the investigation," he told reporters Tuesday. "There's a lot that needs to be done."
Preliminary information from the cockpit voice recorder showed that the stall warning started sounding about 20 seconds before the recording stopped, Sumwalt said.
Those warnings generally go off when there's not enough air going over the top of the plane's wings to provide lift, he said.
Before the crash, the plane had slowed to 88 knots (about 100 mph) and witnesses saw the aircraft moving erratically up and down and from side to side, he said.
So far, investigators haven't found any evidence of a catastrophic engine failure, an in-flight fire or a bird strike, Sumwalt said.
Six killed after plane crashes into home
<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Marie Gemmell and her two sons, 3-year-old Cole and infant Devon, died after a plane crashed into their Maryland home.
Marie Gemmell and her two sons, 3-year-old Cole and infant Devon, died after a plane crashed into their Maryland home.
Firefighters stand outside a house where a small plane crashed in Gaithersburg, Maryland, on Monday, December 8. Three people in the plane and three people in the house were killed, authorities said.
The wreckage smolders in a driveway on December 8. The plane went down about a mile from the Montgomery County Airport.
An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board examines the wreckage on December 8. The crash occurred at about 10:44 a.m. as the twin-engine plane made an instrument approach to the airport, said Robert Sumwalt of the NTSB. The airport is about 25 miles northwest of Washington.
The flight originated in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. One of the people killed on the plane was Michael Rosenberg, CEO and founder of a North Carolina clinical development company called Health Decisions, according to a statement from the company.
Sumwalt said the plane's "black box" had been recovered from the wreckage. He said the device contained the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.
"The aircraft wreckage itself is really in two main areas, but it damaged three houses," Sumwalt said.
Firefighters stand outside the crash site on December 8.
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
Plane crashes into Maryland house
The crash occurred Monday morning in Gaithersburg, Maryland, as the twin-engine Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 approached Montgomery County Airport.
Investigators say a mother and two children were killed when the plane struck their home.
Michael Rosenberg, CEO and founder of a North Carolina clinical development company called Health Decisions, was identified as the plane's pilot.
The pilot, who had logged 4,500 flying hours, was involved in a prior accident in March 2010, Sumwalt said.
Monday's flight originated in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, close to the company's headquarters in Durham.
Chijioke "Chiji" Ogbuka, another Health Decisions employee, also was killed in the crash, the company said in a statement Tuesday. David Hartman, vice president of clinical pharmacology at Nuventra, a consulting firm, was also a passenger on the plane and died in the crash.
Husband: I lost the love of my life
Ken Gemmell, whose wife and two young sons -- one a toddler, the other an infant -- were killed when the plane crashed into their home, said in a statement posted on Facebook that he was at a loss for words to describe the enormity of the tragedy.
"We lost Marie, the love of my life and college sweetheart, and our two young, innocent and joyful sons -- a loss that no person should ever endure. The outpouring of support has been overwhelming, and my daughter and I are appreciative for the prayers and well wishes from friends, neighbors and the community," he wrote. "We also appreciate the dedication and hard work of the firefighters, police and other first responders who did everything in their power to try to save my family during this horrific event."
Plane wentoff runway in 2010
FAA records show that Rosenberg, who died in Monday's crash, piloted a small plane that left the runway during a landing at the same airport on March 1, 2010. The plane skidded 100 feet off the runway and came to rest in trees, nose down in the mud, the NTSB report says. There was one minor injury, the report added.
In Monday's incident, the plane went down about a mile from the airport, hitting three houses in all. The airport is about 25 miles northwest of Washington.
Scott Manseau told CNN affiliate WJLA that he watched in disbelief from a parking lot as the plane seemed to struggle to maintain altitude.
"And as I'm watching him, he goes hard over to the left, and then very hard over to the right," Manseau said. "And I thought, well, that guy could be in trouble."
Witness Fred Pedreira, 67, told WJLA the plane appeared to be out of control when it crashed.
"This guy, when I saw him, for a fast jet with the wheels down, I said, 'I think he's coming in too low,'" said Pedreira, who lives near the crash scene. "Then he was 90 degrees -- sideways -- and then he went belly-up into the house and it was a ball of fire. It was terrible."
CNN's Rene Marsh, Chandler Friedman, Aaron Cooper, Ralph Ellis and Shelby Lin Erdman contributed to this report.
