One in house and 49 people aboard a Continental Express plane that crashed into a suburban Buffalo home are dead.
The 44 passengers and four crew aboard the plane, a Continental Connection flight operated by Colgan Air which was on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, were killed, FAA said. (Reuters)
ARTICLE BY/FROM AFP - YAHOO
NEW YORK (AFP) - An ice build-up may have contributed to the crash of a Continental Airlines plane that went down outside of the northern US city of Buffalo, killing 50 people, federal investigators have suggested.
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Forensic teams on Saturday scoured the rubble for human remains and pieces of the broken-up plane in a search for clues as to the cause of the crash of Continental Flight 3407.
The aircraft, on a flight from Newark in New Jersey to Buffalo, plummeted onto the house in Clarence Center late Thursday, exploding into a fireball and killing all 49 passengers and crew.\
One man in the crushed house also died, although his wife and daughter escaped with only minor injuries.
"The crew discussed significant ice build-up -- ice on the windshield and leading edges of the wings," said investigator Steven Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB).
The clue was yielded by the recordings on the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder recovered from the scene on Friday.
"Significant ice build-up is an aerodynamic impediment. Airplanes are built with wings that are shaped a certain way and ice can change the shape," he said, stressing that the NTSB has not reached a final conclusion about the cause of the crash.
Investigators said black box recordings showed the crew was concerned about the weather and low visibility due to snow and mist as they approached Buffalo.
They asked to drop to 11,000 feet, but began to see a problem with ice.
Seconds after it opened the landing gear, the plane suddenly began "a series of severe pitch and roll excursions," Chealander said.
"Then shortly after that, the crew attempted to raise the gear and flaps just before the end of the recording. And that's it from the recording that we have thus far," he added.
The pilot of the ill-fated plane was identified as 47-year-old Marvin Renslow, who joined Colgan Air in 2005 and had flown more than three thousand hours with the airline, a company spokesman said.
Witnesses reported an unusual loud noise coming from the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop plane, which crashed about five minutes before it was due to land.
"We heard a very low humming sound, like a buzz. It was something I have never heard before. Then there was dead silence. After that dead silence, the whole building shook. At that point, you heard a terrifying boom, like a crash," resident Jamie Lynn Trujillo told Fox News.
Her 12-year-old daughter, Tomasita Trujillo, told AFP the plane was on fire before it crashed.
"I looked out my window and saw flames on everything except one of the wings," she said. "It sounded like something was caught (on the plane). It didn't sound right."
Despite the massive heat and wall of flames created by the crash, no other houses in the neighborhood sustained any damage, officials said.
President Barack Obama offered his condolences to the families and friends of those killed.
"Tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life, and the value of every single day," he said.
Controllers had desperately tried to make contact with the pilot as the plane, run by Colgan Air for Continental, approached Buffalo-Niagara International Airport, also the tourist gateway to Niagara Falls.
Among the victims were Beverly Eckert, whose husband was killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and Alison Des Forges, an expert on Rwanda and a senior advisor to Human Rights Watch.
Eckert, who met with Obama at the White House earlier this month along with other relatives of those killed in the attacks, was traveling to Buffalo to mark what would have been her husband, Sean Rooney's, 58th birthday.
Eckert "was an inspiration to me and to so many others, and I pray that her family finds peace and comfort in the hard days ahead," Obama said at the White House.
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In Memory Of Colgan Crew 3407 - Video Tribute to the Crewby tdonohue65,010 views
in case no one reads the description of this video.this plane crash had a woman on board who only a few weeks earlier met obama and asked him to reinvestigate 9/11,she was a 9/11 victims wife.And anyone seeing how she died has got to ask themself.....was this a big coincidence or another clue to 9/11 being an inside job.google beverly eckert and investigate her death
toppertruthio 5 months ago
hilarious! thanks for posting!
franklinpeach 1 year ago
Did you seriously use the "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me" rabbit for this thing? Really?
fastchapter 1 year ago 2
damn right...even a noob pilot like me is afraid to pitch more than 10 degrees
lavakava 1 year ago
Ice? Not relevant. Negligible effect.
What had effect was the pilot's pitching up to 31º. That guaranteed a stall. He made no attempt attempt to recover from the stall he brought on. That is why he crashed.
bethpage89 2 years ago 2
XYZ you asshole! You sound more like a dumb American bigot, probably a 6th grade dropout, shoveling shit somewhere in the South. The only "connection" you have is your mouth to the ass of a skunk.
gallferi 2 years ago
I am from Tuvalu... you fucking ignorant you don't know where the fuck is tuvalu. It is somewhere over there right in your ass. And I am going to find you who you are and guess what.... YOU ARE DONE. You think that I have no connections in Europe. Well wait and see... accidents will find you...
xyz1000abc 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
I hate all Saudis. I hate all of them ... they are the terrorists
xyz1000abc 2 years ago
fucking filthy muzzie....
xyz1000abc 2 years ago
XYZ, your mother did it!
gallferi 2 years ago