Continental Crew Didn’t Have Time to Warn Passengers of Danger

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By Brian K. Sullivan

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The crew of Continental Airlines Inc. Flight 3407 didn’t have time to warn passengers the plane was about to crash three days ago as it tried to land at Buffalo’s Niagara International Airport.

“It was just a sudden catastrophic event that took place, and 30 seconds later they hit the ground,” said National Transportation Safety Board Member Steven Chealander at a press briefing yesterday in Amherst, New York.

All 49 passengers and crew and one person on the ground were killed in the crash, which was the first fatal U.S. airline disaster in more than two years.

The Bombardier Inc. Dash 8 Q400, operated under contract by Pinnacle Airlines Corp.’s Colgan Air unit, went down around 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) northeast of the airport at about 10 p.m. local time on Feb. 12. The flight originated in Newark, New Jersey.

The NTSB will begin a detailed examination of the “black boxes” recovered from the crash today.

Initial evidence shows the plane’s de-icing equipment and engines were working and that the so-called stall-protection devices had activated, Chealander said. The stall-protection devices warn the crew that the plane is about to fall out of the sky and it will actually try to keep the craft aloft, he said.

House, Plane Debris

Temperatures were about 33 degrees Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) at the airport at 9:54 p.m. with light snow and winds o 17 mph (27 kph) and gusts up to 26 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

Investigators found the plane pointed away from the airport and in a position that rules out a nosedive, Chealander said. Investigators don’t know what caused it to turn around.

Heaters had to be brought in to melt ice that was hampering efforts to recover the bodies from the scene, Chealander said. It will take three to four days to recover the victims.

The crash scene is further complicated because the contents of the house are mixed in with the debris from the plane, he said. Part of the plane fell into the cellar of the house. About 150 workers assisting in the recovery are at the site.

Police had sealed off the neighborhood around the crash and were letting residents in today to collect personal belongings before escorting them back out again.

Explosion

Paul and Michele Beiter were in their living room when they saw their neighbor’s house explode. They were going home for the first time yesterday, Michele Beiter said.

The crash killed their neighbor, 61-year-old Doug Wielinski, who was at home when the plane hit the house. His wife and daughter escaped.

Beverly Eckert, the widow of Sept. 11 victim Sean Rooney, was among those on the plane. She was heading to Buffalo for a celebration of what would have been her husband’s birthday and to start a scholarship fund in his name.

Also aboard was Alison Des Forges, one of the world’s foremost experts on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath, said New York-based Human Rights Watch. Des Forges had served as a senior adviser to the organization’s Africa division for almost two decades.

Two members of jazz musician Chuck Mangione’s band --Coleman Mellett, who played guitar, and Gerry Niewood, who played saxophone and flute -- were on the flight. The group was scheduled to play with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Black Boxes

Chealander said he hoped the crash site could be cleaned up by Feb. 18, when forecasters are expecting a snowstorm to hit the area. He said after the bodies have been removed the plane will be moved to a still-undetermined location.

The black boxes, or cockpit voice and flight-data recorders, were recovered and sent to Washington for review. 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.

The last fatal airline accident in the U.S. was Aug. 27, 2006, when a regional jet flown by Delta’s Comair unit crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49. The pilots erred in choosing a runway too short for a safe takeoff, the NTSB concluded.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net