RE: Wheels
I am a pilot. When I saw the pictures of the ice covered lake, I immediately thought that this could be an icing related accident, that could certainly explain the aircrafts behaviour. When an aircraft is overloaded or if it loses lift from ice on its wings, it typically shudders violently as its wings stall usually resulting in a spiral dive if the stall matures. However, this doesnt jive with flame coming out of one of the engines or the tail section as the witness described. That scenario sounds more as if the engine ingested something like a bird or other debris, or some kind of significant engine failure. Its pretty unlikely that a failure like this would have anything to do with landing gear.