It's the headline right now on CNN. Anyone know anything?

Forty-Eight on board including crew.

R.I.P :(

BUFFALO, New York - New York state police said a 50-passenger commuter plane has crashed into a home in suburban Buffalo.

State Trooper John Manthey said the plane hit a house in Clarence around 10:10 p.m. EST Thursday. The house is engulfed in flames.

He says they don't know whether there were any passengers on the plane. They also don't know if there were any injuries in the home.

Manthey says the plane may have been headed to Buffalo Niagara International Airport. He says authorities have called the Federal Aviation Administration.

Prayers for all aboard and all in the area of the crash.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Plane crashes in New York state (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7887555.stm?lss)

A 50-seater passenger plane has crashed into a house in Buffalo, New York State, officials have said.

Police official John Manthey told the Associated Press news agency that the plane hit a house at 2220 (0320GMT). The house was engulfed in flames.

CNN cited aviation officials saying 48 people were on board the Newark to Buffalo flight. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties.

Two people with minor injuries not on plane were taken to hospital, CNN said.

Continental Express flight 3407 had reportedly been delayed, and was approaching the airport in Buffalo two hours later than scheduled.

It came down about five miles (8km) from the airport.

Twelve houses near the crash site were evacuated, because of concerns about the fuel left on the crashed plane.

Doesn't sound good.

Hopefully nobody was home when the plane hit.

from what I'm reading, 1 dead on the ground, 2 injured.

My home is 5 or 6 blocks away from this home, we are in the flight path.

I am not home, out on the road for work but my wife is and quite frankly, she is in a panic right now. She can see the flames and says it reeks outside.

Thinking good thoughts, Macro.

Glad your safe Dennis......


When it first broke on the local news, your were in my thoughts. I think the other Buffalo-area residents don't live near Clarence.

Wow. looks like it hit some trees before it hit the house.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Plane crashes in New York state (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7887555.stm) (BBC video)

Via twitter 2 minutes ago, apparently NYS police confirmed everyone the plane is dead.

They said the plane was on fire before it crashed.

As a fellow Dash8 driver, this is very sobering. My heart goes out to the families, and the Colgan family as well.

I wish the media would stop speculating on what happened. They just make themselves sound like (bigger) idiots.

I feel bad for one the guys that is anchoring the local news. I know he lives in Clarence/Clarence Center (one of the "ritzy" subrubs in the Buffalo-Niagara region).

I feel bad for one the guys that is anchoring the local news. I know he lives in Clarence/Clarence Center (one of the "ritzy" subrubs in the Buffalo-Niagara region).

Yeah it is...The homes where the plane went down were older, historical type homes. I feel for the owners there as well...

Prayers out to the 48 families.

A few closeup pics of the fire

Flugzeugabsturz auf New York: Feuersbrunst im Wohngebiet - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik (http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-39693.html#backToArticle=607322)

Damn, that's right near where I grew up. I worked in Clarence after college and one of my best childhood friends is the town supervisor.

This sucks.

:(

I don't even know what to say. I will be praying for all the families of the victims. Buffalo is such a great community - I know the city will pull together through this tragedy.

My boss's sister-in-law was on the plain. She was the wife of his brother that died in one of the towers on 9-11. I can't imagine what he's going through right now.

My boss's sister-in-law was on the plain. She was the wife of his brother that died in one of the towers on 9-11. I can't imagine what he's going through right now.

9/11 widow apparently on Buffalo flight - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/13/plane.crash.victims/index.html)

Just saw that. Crazy...

Thoughts and prayers to everyone.

Very sad. We were worried because my wife's former sister in-law is a pilot for Continental and she is very close to my step daughters. We still haven't been able to get a hold of her, but, looking at the list of the crew that was onboard, she was not on the plane.

Things like this really make you stop and think.

My house is on a nearly direct path to the crash site with the airport directly in the middle.

14 miles between long street in Clarence (crash site) and Long ave in Cheektowaga (Telle and My home) the airport is a bit closer to us that the crash site (5 miles)


If the winds were different last night or the air traffic heavier in one direction or another that plane could have landed in my back yard.


Just...fuck. My prayers are with the victims families and loved ones.

A scary, yet thankfully not as tragic, hard landing in London:

BBC NEWS | UK | BA jet in airport 'hard landing' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7889727.stm)

Looks like ice build up was a cause

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7889764.stm?lss

My friend rode shotgun for the families who went to visit the site. Said the media acted like freaking vultures out there.

Things like this really make you stop and think.

My house is on a nearly direct path to the crash site with the airport directly in the middle.

14 miles between long street in Clarence (crash site) and Long ave in Cheektowaga (Telle and My home) the airport is a bit closer to us that the crash site (5 miles)


If the winds were different last night or the air traffic heavier in one direction or another that plane could have landed in my back yard.


Just...fuck. My prayers are with the victims families and loved ones.

Yup, I am not home right now...let's say my wife isn't handling this to well right now...the reality hit pretty hard today it could have dropped right on our home.

Yup, I am not home right now...let's say my wife isn't handling this to well right now...the reality hit pretty hard today it could have dropped right on our home.

How are the kids doing?

How are the kids doing?

My kids are fine, they still really do not understand the severity of the situation.

My kids are fine, they still really do not understand the severity of the situation.

Great to hear your family is safe Dennis and doing as well as can be expected. Prayers to the families of the victims, a horrible tragedy.

I really feel for your boss Telle, to lose his borther in 9-11 and now his sister in law.

Well guys, I gotta tell you when I woke up yesterday I had a really sick feeling in my stomach when I turned on the TV. I was in PIT yesterday, but I have been in and out of BUF more times than I can count. I have shot that approach so I am familar with the area.

The media are idiots. If you had any idea how many errors they made in reporting just this one event you would question anything that they ever said.

The plane that went down was a brand new, 70-seat turboprop made my Bombardier, the same company that makes the plane that I fly. It is a variation of the Dash-8, and called the Q-400. A very nice plane, with active noise reduction in the cabin and a full glass cockpit.

It's very hard to speculate what happened. I did hear the recordings from Buffalo Tower to the other planes in the are, the moment that they lost the doomed aircraft. And the crew gave no indication that anything was wrong. They have been saying icing, but honestly, I just don't see ice in that area being bad enough to bring down a plane with a full anit-icing system, especially when other planes were in the area too, shooting the same approach. I had ice twice yesterday, and didn't think anything of it.

The bottom line is that either something so fast and so terrible happened that the crew was unable to deal with it, and it was immediate and catastrophic or someone screwed up. And to be honest, the chance of a structural failure on a brand new airplane is small. Yeah, stuff happens but the safety of new planes that come out is very high. That's it IMO.

On a side note to keep all this in perspective though. Let us not forget the 83 people who died that day and every day after that for the rest of the year in car accidents all over the US. The hypocrisy of that is mind boggling. Take that into consideration when the media comes to crucify the industry.

From the AP this morning.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Investigators say they are gathering pieces of the commuter plane that crashed into a home near Buffalo, killing all 49 people aboard and one person on the ground.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Steve Chealander said early Saturday morning that they also have begun to undertake the somber task of removing the remains of victims. He said that the task could take several days.
NTSB officials have said the crew of Continental Connection Flight 3407 noticed significant ice buildup on the wings and windshield just before the aircraft plunged nose-first.
Chealander says the icing on the plane is just one of several things they are looking at.

I really hope that this is it, and I am wrong.

From my professional pilot experience up here, also in the smaller versions (100/200) of the Dash 8, it would definitely take a lot of ice to create something like this. My speculation is that ice was a factor, but there was some else in play here, either a flap malfunction or some other flight control issue, and that some moderate icing exaggerated the effect. The fact they attempted to put the the flaps back up (as we say around here, "if you f*** yourself, unf*** yourself") tells me that flap extension made the aircraft uncontrollable and the crew attempted to unf*** themselves. Unfortunately, there just wasn't altitude or airspeed to spare.

Also learned that the FO went to the same college I did, only 10 years after me. Aviation is such a small, small world. May they all rest in peace.

I just don't see ice in that area being bad enough to bring down a plane with a full anit-icing system, especially when other planes were in the area too, shooting the same approach.

Just randomly thinking here, or wondering something really. How common or uncommon would it be for a "full anti-icing system" to malfunction to the point of being useless? And would such a situation change the likelihood of icing being the primary cause of the crash?

Way out of my expertise here, just thought about that when you mentioned the system & it flashed through my mind that basically if something breaks down then you don't have it after all.

In my experience with a few different types of DeHavilland aircraft, not very likely. All of the deicing systems have 2 modes of controlling them, so there's a backup. Any other malfunction that would affect the entire system is major enough for the crew to mention to ATC and not fly into known icing.

Somewhat odd breaking news blurb just clearing the wires

CLARENCE, N.Y. (AP) - An investigator says the plane that crashed on a house in New York state landed flat on it and was pointed away from the airport where it was supposed to land.

Steve Chealander (CHEE-lan-duhr) said Saturday that Continental Connection Flight 3407 did not dive into the house, as initially thought.

Chealander says the New Jersey-to-Buffalo flight was cleared to land on a runway pointing to the southwest. But the plane crashed with its nose pointed to the northeast.

I just think that they *should* wait until the unravel what the black box says and gather more info from the crash site.

As far as the airplane facing the wrong direction, that doesn't tell me a whole lot. If the plane was too slow (as a result of icing) or out of control it, a rolling, turning, spiral or spin wouldn't be out of the question.

I agree with Snowman on the icing thing. There have only been a couple of major icing incidents that have lead to crashes. And in each of them, it wasn't the sole source of the accident. In fact each of them was aggravated by pilot error. An airplane this new would have redundancy, and the crew would have known about the problem, and they would have communicated that to ATC.

If their anti-icing system was not functioning they probably wouldn't have been able to even try in Buffalo because the procedures would tell them to avoid icing conditions.

The aviation guy on ABC said the blackbox showed the stall alarm going off. He speculated that the ice buildup stalled the plane and then it spun so that it landed flat and facing away from the airport. He speculated that having the plane on autopilot may have also played a role. While it's normally a good idea, he said that in icing conditions it doesn't allow the pilot to have a feel for the changing response of the airplane. The plane was at a low enough altitude that they simply didn't have time to recover when the plane stalled.

Does that sound right, Pilotman?

Yeah, I would guess that if there was significant ice buildup that it would have been on the tail instead of the wings. The tail provides the pitch control for the airplane. As the tail loses lift because of ice, the autopilot continues to pitch the aircraft up to compensate for the loss of lift. The main cue that you would notice would be a much higher than normal power setting for the aircraft configuration. That should tip you off to a problem.

The crash occurred at what we call the outer marker. That is the point at which you are fully configured for landing, max flaps and gear, and the aircraft is slowed to approach speed for the trip down the glideslope. If the airplane already had significant ice built up, it was closer to the stall speed than the crew would expect.

As they lowered the last bit of flaps they increase drag on the airplane to slow it down. They also need more power to compensate for the increased drag. Since they already needed more power, because the airplane was trimming (pitching) the plane to a higher angle of attack because of the ince, and because the ice has increased the stall speed, introducing even more drag can bring the airplane right to stall.

Wild pitch changes like they are talking about are consistent with ice buildup on the tail. The fix would be to lower the nose and increase power and reduce drag. At that low altitude there wouldn't have been a whole lot to do, except add all the power you have, lower the nose, and pray that you can get some speed back to regain control of the airplane. Depending on when all of this started to happen 5000 feet, or 2400 feet that would make a big difference in how long you had to fix it.

Once you have a large buildup of ice on the plane you can't just knock it off.

Here is the best, most similar incident in recent history.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/09/plane.crash/index.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/08/28/loc_comair28.html

Be wary of what the news media are reporting about pilots intentionally disregarding rules and policies.

The FAA (who makes the rules not the NTSB) has no regulation about disconnecting the autopilot in icing. Also Colgan's policy only talks about disconnecting the autopilot in severe icing conditions. The conditions in Buffalo the night of the accident were only reported light to moderate.

The media are reporting loose and fast with rampant speculation. Whatever gets viewers.