CLARENCE CENTER, New York : Officials sifted through the
smoldering wreckage of a US plane Friday hunting for clues after it
nosedived onto a house in New York state, exploding in a fireball
and killing 50 people.
Teams of police, special agents and officials from the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) carefully moved in after
firefighters spent hours dousing walls of flames that had engulfed
the area, outside Buffalo.
Continental Flight 3407, on a flight from Newark in New Jersey to
Buffalo, plummeted onto the house in Clarence Center late
Thursday.
A possible first clue was yielded by the recordings on the black
boxes recovered from the scene, which revealed that the pilots had
been concerned about ice building up on the wings as they
approached Buffalo airport.
The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 exploded on impact around 10:20 pm (0320
GMT), about five minutes before it was due to land, carrying 49
passengers and crew. One person in the crushed house also died,
although a woman and her daughter escaped from the rubble of their
home with only minor injuries.
The plane was "nose down, tilted to the left so I was able to see
the underbelly of the plane," motorist Tony Tatro told CNN after
the plane skimmed over his car and crashed just yards (meters) from
his own home.
The wreckage was "fully engulfed in flames and 40 and 50 feet (12
and 15 meters) high. The heat was intense enough you couldn't get
to the same side of the street," he added.
The tail of the plane -- surrounded by a plume of white smoke,
twisted debris and a swath of grey ash -- was the only part of the
aircraft still visible at the crash site Friday.
"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."
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.
"The crew discussed significant ice buildup, ice on the windshield
and leading edge of the wings," Steve Chealander, an official with
the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told a press
conference.
Seconds after they opened the landing gear, the plane suddenly
began "a series of severe pitch and roll excursions," he
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.
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.
Erie County Executive Chris Collins told CNN the plane was carrying
5,800 pounds of jet fuel and turned into a fireball on
impact.
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.
Bombardier, the maker of the plane, sent condolences to victims'
families and said it had dispatched its own technical teams to the
site to assist the NTSB investigation.
Among the victims was 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, officials said.
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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