Buffalo Plane Crash Was 'Instantaneous,' Investigator Says

[tekisui]

Source: LA Times

'It was a sudden catastrophic event that took place and then 30 seconds later it impacted,' an NTSB investigator says. Recovery efforts are slowed as water that doused the wreckage turns to ice.
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Reporting from Clarence Center, N.Y. -- Ice and cold temperatures hampered recovery and investigation efforts today of the Continental Airlines turboprop plane that crashed Thursday night, as nearly 150 emergency workers and volunteers combed the crash scene while local residents handed out pizza and drinks.

Water, which firefighters had used to douse the crash scene a day earlier, froze as temperatures dropped overnight, creating a hard, cold blanket that workers melted down with torpedo heaters.

Steven Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board said in a news conference today that it would take at least three or four days before all of the victims could be removed from the charred plane, which sits on top of a crushed green-and-white house on Long Street. Parts of the wreckage are in the house's basement.

According to investigators, it appeared the plane's flaps went down at about 2,300 feet, and that's when everything started to go wrong, Chealander said.

Although witnesses reported seeing the plane nosedive, Chealander said investigators had found the plane's cockpit, tail, engine and wings positioned "as they should be if laying flat, not if it was nose down."

"All we know is that the airplane hit flat. It was a sudden catastrophic event that took place and then 30 seconds later it impacted," he said.

more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-plane-crash15-2009feb15,0,7212539.story

[stray cat]

1. 30 seconds seems like a long time if you are on the plane but not enough time to do anything

[NNN0LHI]

2. Sounds like the pilot just about pulled the damn thing out and then ran out of altitude

If the eyewitness actually seen what he thinks he saw that is.

Don

[DeepBlueC]

3. I just timed 30 seconds and found plenty of time for terror

I fly Dash 8s all the time, on that route over Buffalo, hate any kind of turbulence at all. I think I might have been dead from fear before the plane hit the ground.