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Plane crashes into home in Buffalo, New York
John Wawrow The Associated Press
Issue date: 2/12/09 Section: News
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Flames silhouetted the shattered home after Continental Connection Flight 3407 plummeted into it around 10:20 p.m.
"The whole sky was lit up orange," said Bob Dworak, who lives less than a mile from the crash site. "All the sudden, there was a big bang, and the house shook."
The 74-seat Q400 Bombardier aircraft, operated by Colgan Air, was flying from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to Buffalo Niagara International Airport in light snow, fog and 17 mph winds.
Dworak said while residents of his neighborhood about 10 miles from the Buffalo airport were used to planes rumbling overhead, but this one sounded louder than usual, sputtered and made some odd noises. After hearing the crash, he drove over to take a look, and "all we were seeing was 50 to 100 foot flames and a pile of rubble on the ground. It looked like the house just got destroyed the instant it got hit," he said.
Witness Tony Tatro said he saw the plane flying low and knew it was in trouble.
"It was not spiraling at all. The left wing was a little low," he told WGRZ-TV.
It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner took off from a Lexington, Ky., runway that was too short.
Prior to the crash, the voice of a female pilot on Continental Flight 3407 can be heard communicating with air traffic controllers, according to a recording of the Buffalo air traffic control's radio messages shortly before the crash captured by the Web site www.liveatc.net. Neither the controller nor the pilot exchange any concerns that anything is out of the ordinary as the airplane is asked to fly at 2,300 feet.
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