Photo: TSB

The site of last Thursday's plane crash just east of Lake Country has been cleared.

Wreckage from the plane has been loaded onto trucks for the trip to a Transportation Safety Board facility in Richmond.

Once in Richmond, TSB investigators will begin the arduous task of trying to determine exactly what caused the Cessna Citation to crash shortly after takeoff from Kelowna International Airport.

All four people on board, including former Alberta premier Jim Prentice, the pilot and two other passengers, died in the crash.

"We'll look at it in better light and see if damage to the air frame corroborates information we have from radar data, etc.," said TSB spokesman Bill Yearwood.

"We'll see if there are any instrument components that could glean some valuable information by examination at our lab. If we see something suspicious, we send it off to our lab at head office in Ottawa."

Yearwood said the task of trying to determine what caused the plane to go down will be made more difficult, not only because of a lack of any flight data recording equipment, but the condition of the wreckage.

"It's in very poor condition. The aircraft was completely destroyed.

"There are a few big pieces, but most of it is gathered up in bags. We'll do the best we can with the information we have, and try to draw some conclusions."

Yearwood compared it to a million-piece puzzle.

He reiterated it will be difficult to get to the underlying causes, but is confident they will get at least part way there.