CHAMBERS COUNTY, Texas — Investigators are keeping watch on the crash site in the dark water of the Trinity Bay.
Civilian responders were the first to arrive after the crash, hoping there was something they could do to help.
“Open it up see if it’s got an ID in there or anything," said Jason Campbell as he and two friends picked up debris in the water. "Yeah, drivers license anything … cellphone. Nothing in it?”
The Anahauc boat mechanics were the first ones to make it to the crash site. They spotted the plane minutes before when it was still in the air above the trees.
"All we saw was the butt end of it," Campbell said. "And we knew it was too low. And we heard it hit the water. And then everything just went quiet.”
They drove their boat to the dock and launched into the water and began looking.
“The whole reason for us going out there was to see if we could save anybody," Campbell said. "If we could help anybody. There wasn’t none of that.
“There’s not much of a plane left to tell that it was actually an airplane. There’s packages, clothes, shoes, this stuff floating everywhere.”
Then they began to discover things that were more unsettling.
“Pieces of bodies, nothing bigger than you know," Campbell said. "It’s obvious it’s human pieces but nothing bigger than you can hold in your hands. I knew it was going to be bad, we just … wanted to help people if we could. Whatever it was, we were going to be there to do it.”
This wasn’t the first time this group of men jumped at the chance to save lives.
They were honored for their civilian rescues during Hurricane Harvey when they brought more than 200 people to dry land.
There was not a chance on Saturday.
They said the plane crashed in the marsh where the water is only three-feet deep.
They said the plane was literally swallowed up by the soft mud.
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