The photos show whats left of the plane, they believe tore apart in midair and fell to the mountains below.
The two pilots, 34-year-old Robert Brandt and 32-year-old Kevin Wang, tragically lost their lives in the crash.
On Monday morning, Carson Air Swearingen Merlin III, C-GSKC, operating as Carson Air flight 66, was carrying freight from Vancouver International Airport to Prince George Airport.
In the latest TSB release, they report that shortly after departure, approximately 15 nautical miles north of the airport, the plane disappeared off radar.
It lost contact at about 2,400 metres above sea level and lost altitude rapidly.
North Search and Rescue began an air and ground search soon after.
Later Monday evening, North Shore Rescue ground search crews found the first pieces of aircraft wreckage in steep and heavily wooded terrain southeast of Crown Mountain.
The bodies of the two pilots as well as additional wreckage, including the cockpit, were found the next morning.
The TSB Investigator-in-Charge, Jason Kobi, has determined that there was a small fire in the area of the right engine nacelle.
At that time, the emergency locator transmitter activated, but did not transmit a signal. The crew did not declare an emergency.
“The aircraft dropped from an altitude of 2,400 metres to about 900 metres — the height at which the wreckage was found — in less than 20 seconds,” writes the TBS. “This, with the wreckage dispersal and the lack of terrain damage, is consistent with an in-flight break-up.”
At this point it is unclear what caused the plane to break up in the air. The fact the plane was not equipped with cockpit voice or flight data recording systems, like a black box, increased the difficulty and length of their investigation, and final determination.
“Objective data are invaluable to investigators in understanding the sequence of events leading up to an accident and factors that may have played a causal role. The absence of cockpit voice or flight data recording systems makes it impossible to confirm the nature of crew communications,” writes the TSB who is recommending cockpit voice or flight data recording in all smaller planes.
“In addition, without this information, it is often difficult to eliminate extraneous factors that did not contribute to the accident.”
The TSB media spokesperson tells Castanet they will not speculate what caused, or can cause, an in-flight break up until their final investigation is completed.
They say there is no indication, at this point, of any malicious action or intent to damage the plane.
The TSB will now work to remove the wreckage from the site, collect data and information from various sources including the aircraft manufacture, Transport Canada, NAVCANADA, Environment Canada and the operator and finally complete a detailed examination of the wreckage collected at the TSB’s regional examination facility.