Shelia and Richard visit the site of a plane crash over 11 months after it happened and they see a large portion of the remains of the plane. Even in a remote, wooded mountain area the FAA would have by then hauled everything out to reconstruct what caused the accident.
The online news article about Richard's wife's death says the plane crash with no survivors was confirmed on a Tuesday night, but the date and time stamp on the news article is a Monday afternoon. That type of story would have been filed no later than the Wednesday morning after the official announcement.