that he did not consider the snowfall heavy, and he did not recall any wind blowing the snow. The first officer stated that as they taxied, they looked back at the wings several times. Near the time of the takeoff, he said, "looks good to me, black strip is clear." While taxiing, the flight crew discussed deicing procedures. The first officer suggested to the pilot that the aircraft ahead of them in the queue "might keep our wings clear for us." The pilot replied, "it can cause us to refreeze, too ... I don't want to be very close to him." Later, the first officer remarked, "look at all that stuff. What is that?" to which the pilot replied, "sand I guess, urea sand." The pilot of a jet taxiing behind Flight 405, Northwest Airlines Flight 517, a Boeing 757, stated that he had a good view of the top of Flight 405's wing, and that just enough snow was on the fuselage to "fuzzy" the USAir printing, but that the wings appeared to be clear. He believed that the snow had "all but stopped" and was more concerned about the amount of vehicular traffic, such as sweepers and plows, than he was about the snowfall. The second officer of Trump Shuttle Flight 1541, which had landed around the time Flight 405 was taxiing, said their Boeing 727 had "picked up a lot of snow quickly during my post-landing walkaround, but by the finish it seemed to be more rain." He described Flight 405 as a "fairly clean airplane." He said that he could not comment on clear ice, but that the wings and fuselage were clear of snow. The jet, already several hours behind schedule, then suffered further delays taxiing to the runway. The weather had created heavy ground traffic at LaGuardia, and queues of aircraft were reported to be waiting for permission for takeoff. Investigators estimated that the plane took between 25 and 45 minutes to taxi from the gate to the runway. Crash Following permission for takeoff from controllers, the flight crew initiated the takeoff procedure and the first officer made a callout of , and several seconds later, a V1 callout, followed shortly after by a VR callout. Approximately 2.2 seconds after the VR callout, the nose gear left the ground. The final report read, "the first officer described the takeoff as normal through the rotation.