Federal investigators continue to look into what lead to the crash that claimed the three men from Northeast Wisconsin last Thursday night.

Killed in the crash was John Pagel, owner of Pagel’s Ponderosa. His son-in-law Steve Witcpalek who worked with him at the farm and pilot Nathan Saari.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are looking for clues to what may have contributed to the crash.
    
As of right now – investigators are saying nothing other than they are continuing to investigate. 
    
Local Five was contacted by an aviation expert out of Dallas – Robert Katz who has been a pilot for nearly 37 years.
    
Mr. Katz says he has studied what’s publicly available on the incident- including audio between the pilot and air traffic control and another website that tracks the movements of aircraft.
    
Mr. Katz believes the aircraft may have had a mechanical issue, “The last radar hit on Flight Aware indicates that the airplane was climbing at six thousand feet a minute that is not normal for that particular airplane to be climbing at that rate and that sounds to me like a stuck trim tab or a runaway auto pilot or trim system that the pilot cannot disengage either by pulling circuit breakers or pushing buttons um something is jammed at this point and now he has no control over the airplane,” said Robert Katz, commercial pilot, flight instructor.

FAA investigations like this generally take months or longer before a final report is released.