A Continental Airlines Inc. plane from Newark, New Jersey, crashed into a house on approach to the airport in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground, Bloomberg reported.
The Bombardier Inc. Dash 8 Q400, operated under contract by Pinnacle Airlines Corp.'s Colgan Air unit, went down about 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of Buffalo Niagara International Airport after 10 p.m. local time yesterday, said Dave Bissonette, emergency-control director for Clarence, a suburb of Buffalo near the crash site.
The plane went "right into the top of the house," Bissonette said early today at a televised press conference in Clarence, near Clarence Center, a hamlet of 1,747 where Flight 3407 crashed. "It's amazing it only took one house, as devastating as that was. It could easily have wiped out that whole neighborhood."
The accident occurred during weather that included snow and freezing temperatures, officials said. National Transportation Safety Board investigators arrived today at the scene, still smoldering in intense heat. Only the tail of the plane is intact, Bissonette said.
The cockpit voice and flight-data recorders were recovered and are being sent to Washington for review, said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz in an interview. Cockpit voice recorders capture noises and what was said by the pilots, while the flight-data recorder tracks airplane movements and manipulation of flight controls.
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