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50 feared dead in Buffalo plane crash
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CLARENCE, N.Y. (AP) — A commuter plane dropped out of the sky without warning and nose-dived into a suburban Buffalo house Thursday night in a fiery crash that killed all 49 people aboard and one person in the home. It was the nation's first deadly crash of a commercial airliner in 2 1/2 years.
The cause of the disaster was under investigation, but other pilots were overheard around the same time complaining of ice building up on their wings - a hazard that has caused major crashes in the past.
The twin turboprop aircraft - Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark, N.J. - was coming in for a landing when it went down in light snow and fog around 10:20 p.m. Thursday about five miles short of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
Witnesses heard the plane sputtering before it plunged squarely through the roof of the house, its tail section visible through flames shooting at least 50 feet high.
"The whole sky was lit up orange," said Bob Dworak, who lives less than a mile away. "All the sudden, there was a big bang, and the house shook."
Two others in the house escaped with minor injuries. The plane was carrying a four-member crew and an off-duty pilot. Among the 44 passengers killed was a woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Federal investigators searched through the wreckage for the black box recorders that could shed light on what went wrong, but they said the smoldering debris was still too hot to look for bodies.
No mayday call came from the pilot before the crash, according to a recording of air traffic control's radio messages captured by the Web site LiveATC.net. Neither the controller nor the pilot showed concern that anything was out of the ordinary as the airplane was asked to fly at 2,300 feet.