Update @ 4:39 p.m. by Reporter Becky Freemal:
By 2 p.m., the Ohio State Highway Patrol reported both crash sites had been cleared, and re-opened to traffic.
Sunday Report Becky Freemal:
The heavy equipment pulled in early Sunday morning as the cleanup from Friday's midair collision began.
It took several hours, as NTSB and FAA investigators took one last look at the wreckage as crews opened it up.
Hamilton County Coroner Dr. O'Dell Owens was also on scene.
"Today, since they will be removing the wreckage, we wanted to come out and make sure we have recovered everything we needed to recover," he said.
Niels Harpsoe's Beechcraft Bonanza crashed on Kemper Road near Reed Hartman Highway. Flight instructor Edward Hitchens and student pilot David Woeste were in the Cessna 172, which lost a wing and crashed about a mile north in the middle of a subdivision.
"We put it in storage, pending litigation, and litigation in this case is probably going to take five to seven years," said George Matthews, owner of Hangar 6, Inc. "It's his crew who cleaned the debris, and will then store it in their Hillsboro hangar."
"From there, they should be able to piece together how the planes collided. What part of what plane hit the certain part of another plane," said Ohio State Highwway Patrol Sgt. James Russell.
It's a job that has to be done, and done by the book, but that doesn't mean this crew has lost sight of what was happened out here. "There is still the reality that there is a dead man involved, and that does trouble us. He has a mother and he probably has a wife and children, and that does bother you on Mother's Day, particularly," Matthews said.
Once finished on Kemper Road, crews and investigators headed north to Squire Hill Court to start the process all over again.
