The cockpit voice recorder from Payne Stewart's shattered Learjet has yielded various noises but no voices from the final moments of the doomed flight -- just as investigators expected.
However, those noises could help establish the cause of the accident that killed the golfer and five others Oct. 25, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Paul Schlamm said today.
"There are various sounds and noises we're working on. We are hopeful that will lead to some useful information that will help in the investigation," he said.
The plane crashed into a South Dakota pasture four hours after it left Orlando, Fla., on a flight to Texas. It flew 1,400 miles across the country, apparently on autopilot, before it ran out of fuel.
Investigators are looking into the possibility that the jet lost cabin pressure soon after takeoff, causing everyone on board to die or lose consciousness from lack of oxygen.
Because the black box is a 30-minute loop that records over itself, investigators had expected to hear no voices.
The recorder was damaged extensively when the plane slammed into the ground at an estimated 600 mph. It was sent to Seattle so its manufacturer could help recover information from the recorder's memory chips.
Most of the pieces have been recovered from the crash site, and some have been sent to Washington for laboratory analysis.
The NTSB will probably not issue its findings about the cause of the accident for several months.
