Coast Guard, and the United States Navy began an intensive search along the southeastern coast of the United States. The search was called off the following day, when National Airlines received word that there was a plane down in North Carolina. At about 2:45 a.m. a farmer, Richard Randolph, heard the sound of an engine cutting in and out, followed by tearing metal and an explosion. Later that morning, after his teenage son McArthur Randolph found airplane wreckage in one of his father's fields, Richard Randolph drove to Bolivia, North Carolina, which had the nearest phone. He called Wilmington Airport to report the downed plane at approximately 7:00 a.m. When Highway Patrol officers responded, he led them to the crash site. Bodies and wreckage were scattered over an area of covering farm fields, marshland, and pine forests. During the first day of search and rescue, investigators located 32 bodies of the 34 persons on board. One of the missing bodies was later found at the main crash site. The remaining body was found at Snow's Marsh, approximately from the main site. Initial reports speculated that the aircraft had disintegrated in mid-flight. One newspaper reporter indicated that the largest piece of wreckage he observed was a portion of the wing. A fragment of aluminum, believed to be a piece of the airplane's skin, was found on Kure Beach, from the rest of the wreckage. Investigations The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), part of the Department of Transportation, were the primary investigators into the crash of Flight 2511. The wreckage of the DC-6 was taken to a hangar at nearby Wilmington Airport, where the fuselage was reassembled on a wood-and-chicken-wire frame. Investigators recovered approximately 90% of the fuselage, which was then assembled on the frame in the Wilmington hangar. Investigators identified the point of origin of the disintegration as an area immediately ahead of the leading edge of the aircraft's right wing. The material recovered from Kure Beach, including a portion of the wing fillet, was from this general area. Investigators did not recover material from an irregular, triangularly shaped area positioned above the leading edge and extending forward ahead of the wing. The bodies were taken to the local high school gymnasium to await autopsy and identification by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fingerprinting team. The Brunswick County coroner ordered autopsies of the passengers and crew to determine the specific cause