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American Morning
The Tragedy of Flight 3407: The Flight Recordings, Examination of Weather Conditions, Reports From Buffalo
Aired February 13, 2009 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Breaking news.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blackened and charred wreckage scattered about.
ROBERTS: A horrific plane crash in western New York killing all on board killed and one person on the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A large, red blow, just massive, massive flames.
ROBERTS: A 50-foot-high fireball where a home once stood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fuselage of the plane lies directly on the footprint of the house.
ROBERTS: This morning, new information you need to know.
CHRIS KAUSNER, SISTER WAS ON BOARD PLANE: I'm thinking about what I'm going to tell my two sons.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): And eyewitnesses who barely escaped disaster.
MARY JANE LUCE, CRASH WITNESS: The house shook.
ROBERTS: On this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Good morning, and thanks very much for being with us. It is Friday, February the 13th, and unfortunately today is living up to its reputation.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. We're following a tragic story out of New York, Buffalo, New York, in fact, the town just outside of there called Clarence Center.
It's 7:00 here on the nose in New York, and we have the latest information now on this Continental Airlines plane that crashed into a home late last night, killing 44 passengers, four crew members on board, and also a man who was in his home when it happened.
The plane making -- what's being described as a direct hit basically diving right into the top of this home in this quiet, quiet neighborhood there in Clarence Center. The flight left from Newark, just seven miles away from the destination, which was Buffalo, Niagara International Airport. Victims' family members are describing the shock of learning the news of the loss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAUSNER: I'm thinking the worst. And I'm thinking about the fact that my mother has to fly home from Florida, and what I'm going to tell my two sons. That's what I'm thinking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: So, clearly, shock and a lot of sadness. Some of the family members and friends of the 44 passengers and four crew on board. We're getting all kinds of reaction and dramatic video from the scene as well.
A look at the first responders at the site. Officials say that the house that the plane slammed into was just destroyed. They really describe it as a direct hit, and then the house just erupting in a fireball. The plane bursting into a ball of flames. And one resident nearby says the crash "felt like a mini earthquake."
This would be about a 64,000-pound plane carrying 5,000 pounds of fuel so you can imagine what it must have been like to be in that neighborhood at the time of the crash. And you can see here the only recognizable part of the plane appears to be the tail. It was a 74- seat turboprop plane carrying 44 passengers and four crew and again, reports are that no one survived.
Strong pungent smell of jet fuel in the air, the thick, black smoke billowing into the air, and the flames just giving off tremendous heat as they burn.
Our Rob Marciano telling us that the weather at the time of the crash was icy, snowy. Upstate New York also experiencing some windy conditions, but unclear whether or not the weather had anything to do with this crash in particular. Again, we are getting new information about other flights, other pilots reporting icing from about 20 miles out, Buffalo, as they were making their way to that airport, but again, whether or not ice on the plane had any impact on this crash, still remains to be seen.
ROBERTS: In fact, we've got the audio from the air traffic controllers to share with you this morning, in the moments before the crash. There did not appear to be any stress or fear from the flight crew, pretty much routine communications. Let's listen though to what followed after controllers lost contact with Flight 3407.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE, CONTINENTAL CONNECTION FLIGHT #3407, TAPE OF COCKPIT-CONTROL TOWER COMMUNICATION)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: COLGAN 34-7, approach. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: COLGAN 3407, Buffalo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: COLGAN 34-7, now approach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: DELTA 1998, look off your right side about five miles for a Dash 8, should be 43 hundred, you see anything there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh, negative Delta 1998, we're just in the bottoms and nothing off TKs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo Tower, how do you hear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (unintelligible), this is ground communication. We need to talk to somebody at least five miles northeast, OK, possibly Clarence, that area right in there. Akron area, either state police or sheriff's department. We need to find if anything is on the ground.
This aircraft was five miles out and all of a sudden we have no response on that aircraft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I can tell you is the aircraft's over the marker and we're not talking to them now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (unintelligible) Let me get right back to you sir, but apparently we have an emergency, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, for all aircraft this frequency, we did have a Dash 8 over the marker that didn't make the airport. It appears to be about five miles away from the airport there, Delta 1998, I'm going to bring you in sir, on the approach. If you could just give me a fire up (ph) when get to 23 hundred, and if you have any problem with the localizer or anything let me know. However, we're showing that all (unintelligible)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cactus, did you find Colgan?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately, they said he went down about right over the marker (unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tower, Cactus 1452's coming up on the clock and we saw the ground, you guys know what's going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cactus 1452, Buffalo Tower (unintelligible) two three to clear landing, yes sir, we are aware. OK.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Wow. So there you can hear the communication between the air traffic controllers and a couple of other aircrafts in the area when they realized that Colgan 3407 has gone down. We're also picking up some other communications later on in that sequence which indicates that, in fact, icing may have been a problem in the area.
You know, we were talking to Rob Marciano about that and the conditions in the air there. Several pilots reported some ice buildup on the wings. We've compressed the time span here to get rid of gaps of silence that were, you know, seconds long in duration, just to give you an idea of what was going on up in the air.
Let's listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: Delta 1998, do you have any icing where you're at?
DELTA 1998: We picked it up on the way down. I don't think we're building any more here. But about 6500 down the -- about 3500 maybe?
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: OK. Thank you, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: So there you go, you get an indication that icing was a problem. A couple of other aircrafts reported that they had maybe a quarter inch of ice on their wings. Not a problem for most aircrafts. And this was an aircraft that had a very robust deicing system. It got inflatable boots on the leading edge of the wing. It has electric deicers on the propellers themselves.
John Lucich is an expert in aviation because he flies aircraft, flies commercially at a New York area.
You've flown into Buffalo Niagara airport many, many times. When you listen now to the overall picture that's being painted by the communications between air traffic controllers and other aircraft in the area, what is that suggesting to you?
JOHN LUCICH, LICENSED COMMERCIAL PILOT: It's suggesting clearly that ice could have been a problem. Here's what happens with ice.
Ice builds up on the leading edge of the wing and malforms the wing and that reduces lift drastically. Now these were dowdy six plane props, OK. The way the props are designed is to bite into the air and pull the aircraft through. As the ice builds up on the props, it reduces that thrust and the ability. Even if you have 100 percent max power, you're not producing the same thrust. It's totally reduced.
In addition to that, it builds up weight on the airplane and increases drag so those four things are a disaster for -- just a recipe for disaster.
CHETRY: According to the NOAA Web site, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, it's really not usually ice that's the result of -- that is the cause of accidents when they're weather- related. They actually point to adverse winds as being the number one cause of accidents in general, but in terms of fatalities and fatal accidents, it's reduced visibilities and low ceilings. So where this -- and ice is really actually very far down, actually the second to the last in terms of weather-related. So is it just arbitrary what determines whether or not icing or adverse weather causes a crash?
LUCICH: No, it either causes it or it doesn't. But you know, John mentioned the fact that this was a booted airplane as opposed to heated wing. What happens with boots is that you have to let the ice build up and then hit the boots. It expands and breaks it off, OK? If you keep hitting the boot, what happens is, the boot is allowed to build -- the ice is allowed to build around the expanded boot and therefore it's not effective whatsoever. I'm not saying that's what happened but that's more of a commonality with booted aircraft as opposed to a heated aircraft.
ROBERTS: Now, of course, we remember what happened to American Eagle Flight 4182 in 1984. It was an ATR aircraft, different manufacturer by similar in design to this one -- turboprop, over wing, over fuselage, an over wing aircraft, had ice buildup in a freezing rainstorm, turned turtle, went upside down and dove into the ground because it lost all lift. You know, and that was flying, too, at altitude.
Here you're coming in on an approach. So you're starting to come in. You're slowing down your speed. You're deploying your flaps. Maybe you're getting some buildup of ice in the wings. There's also turbulence from other aircraft that have been flying in the area. Could it just be one thing or could it be the totality of events that were going on around that aircraft that might have caused some sort of catastrophic incident?
LUCICH: Again, it's speculation at this point but if I had to think of one determination right now, it would be icing and the reason being because I listened to those transmissions and I didn't hear any warnings about weight turbulence, additional spacing or anything like that going on. When you take a look at what happened to that Indiana flight, you can just see how quickly a disaster can come up on you, like I said, how that pilot reacted when I listened to those transmissions.
This is an aircraft that has wings about 35 feet behind the cockpit. It's at night. They're already into this approach now.
They're not looking. They didn't see the ice beforehand. They're not looking outside those wings right now. They're flying the airplane, setting this up for a landing and going through their checklist.
CHETRY: Curious about whether or not, I mean, if you're flying a plane that goes into cities that are cold, I mean Chicago comes to mind, Buffalo, I mean, these are cities where this is the situation weather-wise, six months out of the year at least. Did they determine or did they try to figure out the best planes to fly into these areas? You mentioned whether a plane is automatically heated in terms of the outside or whether it would be something that the pilot would have to manually take care of, ice. LUCICH: Right. You're talking about is the booted leading edge as opposed to the heated leading edge. They design all aircraft to fly in all types of weather especially these airline types. The smaller airplanes you can get them without boots or you can get them with boots. But when you're talking about large aircraft like this, they should be able to fly in any type of condition because a lot of these guys are flying up from Florida all the way up to Buffalo and back.
When I was flying -- go ahead.
ROBERTS: No, go ahead.
LUCICH: When I was flying in that area, my route was outside of the New York City area, hit Boston. I come over to Utica, go off to Plattsburgh and over to Buffalo, and back to the New York area, two specific airports down there. I fly in cargo and I was doing this five nights a week for as long as I was with this department 135 operation.
ROBERTS: You know, thinking back to the American Eagle flight, it was an ATR 70, I believe was the configuration of the aircraft. It was determined that that aircraft should not be flying in those conditions at least in the configuration that existed at that point, and it was relegated to working further south in the country where the temperatures were warmer. But this is an aircraft that's built in Canada. If anybody knows about flying in adverse conditions, it's people in Canada. So I mean, I'm just trying to think of all of the things that could have happened, which would have led to this catastrophic failure.
LUCICH: Again, you got to boot, and it's building up with ice and no one's noticing it, it's going to malform the wing and maybe it brought them down and they didn't realize it.
ROBERTS: And certainly, we're getting evidence from other aircraft in the area that icing was a problem. These are transcripts from air traffic control tapes which were gleaned off of the net, liveatc.net. Air traffic control reaching out to an aircraft Delta 1998, says, "Are you getting any kind of icing or anything there?" Delta 1998 responds doesn't appear to be building. We've got about a half an inch, quarter of an inch on us from the descent that has remained with us the whole time.
Cactus 1452 US Airways flight reports we've been picking up ice here for about the last ten minutes, since about 10 to 20 miles south of the airport. The air traffic approach control calls back to Cactus 1452, says, "If you got let me know when you get out of the ice. Aircraft coming up from the south reporting that earlier.
Cactus 1452 responds. The ice has started to come off the wind screen now. Any information we can get, we'd appreciate it. So if it's building up on the wind screen, what does it say it could be doing to the wings?
LUCICH: Well, absolutely, it could be malforming those wings, you know. One of the other things that he did, the controller, and I know why he did it. He was looking to confirm what he saw on the radar.
He's slowing the airplane on his radar. He reaches out to Delta 1998 and says hey, look to the right, five miles out you should see this airplane. Now, he's got a pilot report that says this airplane is not seen in the sky. That is, to me the most chilling part of this whole tapes right there, because now the controller's confirmed this airplane is on the ground and then he goes into notification about that location and get the state police and sheriff out there.
CHETRY: The plane that you referred to that we're talking about right now, you referred to as a puddle jumper. These are the ones that fly regionally, right? A lot of time you take these smaller planes. Is a larger plane, a 747, safer in ice or is that -- does it not make any difference?
LUCICH: Well, you know what? If you get ice, you get ice. The larger airplanes are going to be a lot more safer for a lot of different reasons. They have high-time pilots.
Here's what happens a lot of times, and I'm not saying this is by the book, but a lot of times these pilots fly to regional airlines to build up their time to get to the majors. So they become a place for new pilots to get experience and then take that experience out to the majors where they sit in a nice, comfy job flying some really nice equipment. That leaves low-time pilots and mid-time pilots at all the regionals. I believe that, you know, a guy like Sully, you're going to see with the majors, and that's what happens with a lot of these regionals. So they're typically lower-time pilots unless you get the few people who stay with them.
ROBERTS: Right. So when the crash team gets there, they're going to split off into groups to be the power plant team, the structure team. They'll also be looking at the weather.
How long do you think it will take them to determine a cause? Obviously, they've got to get the cockpit recorder, the flight data recorder as well. Hopefully they're still in good condition after that enormous fire that we saw on the ground there and perhaps they'll be able to ascertain what happened in the moments after the air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane. We'll have to wait and see.
LUCICH: There's no doubt they're going to find that black box. You know, the longest running bit in this industry is that the safest seat in the house is in that black box.
ROBERTS: Yes. Exactly, unfortunately.
John, thanks. Stay with us this morning.
CHETRY: Right now, a team of officials from the National Transportation Safety Board are on their way to Buffalo. Actually they should be getting there any minute. They left Reagan National Airport in Washington earlier this morning, and before departing, Steven Chealander, he's the spokesman for the agency, talked a little bit about the situation. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN CHEALANDER, NTSB SPOKESMAN: Our group's assembling here. We got one flight leaving. We're wheels up at 6:00 on the first FAA airplane and then we have another wheels up at 8:30 with our investigative team going up.
Transportation disaster assistance people are going. Those are the people that are going to work with families and so forth in the accident. And so, we've got them going on this flight and the next flight and plus, we've got a contingent going up on commercial aviation
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: And we're also learning more about those who perished in the disaster. One man telling reporters that his sister was on board. She was a law school student coming home to her family. Another woman's sister, a 9/11 widow was also on that flight.
We want to bring in our Alina Cho now for more on this. And as you said before, these are 49 families that now have been dealt an unspeakable tragedy in the blink of an eye.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It does get better in time but certainly you never forget. It is incredibly tragic, mind-boggling when you consider the miracle on the Hudson just a couple of weeks ago, guys.
Good morning, everybody. Forty-nine people killed. Families are just coming to grips with what happened and for some, the shock will stay with them for some time. There is no way to explain the sadness.
Just listen to the story of Beverly Eckert. According to the "Buffalo News" she was a passenger on Flight 3407. She was also a 9/11 widow. She lost her husband in the World Trade Center, and Eckert was actually traveling to Buffalo this weekend for what was supposed to be a celebration of what would have been her husband's 58th birthday. In fact, she even planned to take part in the presentation of a scholarship award that she established in her husband's honor. Family members told the "Buffalo News," "We know she was on that plane and now she's with him."
Ellyce Kausner was also a passenger on Flight 3407. She was actually on her way home from law school in Jacksonville, Florida. Her brother, Chris, first heard the news on the radio. He called his parents immediately, and then he talked to reporters.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAUSNER: My parents are on vacation in Florida and I had to call down there and tell my father what was going on. And I, I'm just thinking about my mom. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are they taking it?
KAUSNER: To tell you the truth, I heard my mother making noise in the phone that I'd never heard before. My other sister, Laura, was waiting at the airport. I heard on the radio that there had been a crash, so I called immediately to see if the plane had landed at the airport or not. And initially, she thought that it had but it turns out that is not the case.
Right now, I'm thinking the worst. And I'm thinking about the fact that my mother has to fly home from Florida, and what I'm going to tell my two sons. That's what I'm thinking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: Unspeakable. Really, so many eyewitness accounts coming in to CNN as well, so many coming in just this morning.
Mary Jane Luce talked to us earlier this morning. She told us what she saw and heard in the moments after the crash.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUCE: We heard this huge explosion and the house shook. So we ran toward our back windows which look out towards the house that was hit, and we could see flames rising high in the sky. And so we grabbed our coats and ran outside to get a better view, because there's a building partially blocking the view, and went over on to the side street, and you could see that there -- well, you almost couldn't see, because of the flames and the smoke. There was so much that it appeared that the house there was totally gone already.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: So far there's no indication of what could have brought down the plane. A moment ago, a "Buffalo News" staff photographer, Harry Scull Jr., who lives in Clarence Center, said he was not surprised that this crash occurred.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY SCULL JR., PHOTOGRAPHER, "BUFFALO NEWS": My house sits right where the flight plane is, and once darkness occurs every night, the planes get lower, and lower, and lower, and lower, where they're just, they're not too far atop above the top of the trees. And I've discussed it with neighbors out here, and I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I've run through my mind hundreds of times if and when this happens, how I'm going to handle it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: So startling to hear that and John, I know you talked to him a couple of times in the past couple of hours and you asked him the impact on the community. And he said "everlasting."
You know, I just did a quick Google search. Clarence Center is a community of just 1,700 people; 1,743, I think, was the exact number that I saw in the first result. But just incredible and by all accounts a very close-knit community and certainly this is not anything that they will forget any time soon.
ROBERTS: No. I mean, you always remember where the plane crash happened.
CHO: Absolutely.
ROBERTS: And where you were, when and you'll always remember where it happened.
CHO: And remarkable that that plane, the fuselage as we've been saying, really is on top of the footprint, you know, of the footprint of just that one house and it could have been as tragic as this was, it could have been so much worse. It could have really brought down so much of that community, you know. So...
ROBERTS: Oh, sure, yes. It came in at a shallow angle and kind of skipped along the ground. It could have taken out two or three homes.
CHO: Incredible.
ROBERTS: I think it really speaks to sort of the trajectory that it came in at, you know, really nose down attitude and just about straight down into the earth.
CHO: Right. Almost vertical probably.
ROBERTS: Yes. You know, and obviously the NTSB investigators are going to be looking into whether or not there was a total loss of lift on those wings which would basically turn the aircraft into a stone and just let it drop like a rock.
CHO: It will be a lengthy investigation, I'm sure.
ROBERTS: It certainly will and the team will be getting there probably in about 40 minutes or so. We want to talk with somebody who heard the plane come in last night.
Keith Burtis is on the phone with us. He's about three miles away from where the crash took place. He lives in nearby Amherst.
Walk us through what happened last night, Keith. What time was it, where were you, what did you hear?
Keith, it's John Roberts. Are you with us?
KEITH BURTIS, NEARBY WHEN CRASH HAPPENED: ... walking out of a book store, which is about three-quarters of a mile to a mile away from the actual crash site, and I was walking out to my car, and I could hear the -- what sounded like a high-pitched sound. Some people were saying that they heard what sounded like props. To me it sounded like a high-pitched sound and like a tube with air rushing through it and it was momentary. And just a few moments after that, you could feel the ground shake and you could feel just everything.
It was an all-over body experience, to be completely honest with you. My sixth sense sort of told me that something, you know, obviously catastrophic had happened at that point.
ROBERTS: Well, Keith, let me just -- let me get you to zero in on the sound that you heard from the propellers. Now, I assume that you're not an aviation expert but of course, we all remember the films from World War II of planes dive-bombing or sometimes when planes would get shot out of the sky, there would be that high-pitched whine that would come from the propellers. Was it like that type of sound or was it different?
BURTIS: I think that's very much probably what it was like. It was definitely high-pitched and then just, you know, but it didn't last very long. It was momentary and then the crash happened. And I was actually able to get into a position where I could see the smoke billowing in the sky and it was just lit up with like an orange cloud of smoke, like a neon orange.
ROBERTS: Wow.
BURTIS: Very, very disturbing.
ROBERTS: So as opposed to that sound indicating any potential problem with the engine, it may just have been that high-pitched whine that we know so well when a plane almost approaches overspeed and the propeller is going around so quickly?
BURTIS: Yes, I definitely couldn't -- I couldn't speak to the way things, you know, exactly what happened on the plane or why it failed. I'm not...
ROBERTS: Yes. No, of course not. Not asking to you do that.
BURTIS: ... you know, an expert by any means in that field, but I can say that the community was definitely immediately alarmed and really people were actually questioning at that point if it was a plane, or if it was a propane tank or something like that, that blew up.
I think initially people's response was, you know, what was it, and why did it happen, and those initial thoughts that run through your head with, you know, things that happen, after 9/11, and whatnot. And I think at this point, it's just going to be the city of good neighbors, which they call us in Buffalo, banding together and trying to help with the families and help with the disaster recovery.
ROBERTS: And just to be clear, Keith, you heard the plane but you didn't see it in the sky at all? You only saw the fireball after it hit?
BURTIS: Yes, it was yesterday, it was -- the weather was changing pretty rapidly. It was pouring pretty much steadily for about probably 12 to 15 hours here and then about 3:00 in the afternoon yesterday, it started turning to snow and wet snow and sleet, and that continued on until later in the evening, and definitely made visibility a problem and definitely it made that an issue to be able to see anything. At the vantage point I was at, I wouldn't be able to actually see the plane coming in either way, but being dark and being the fact it was snowing definitely impeded vision.
ROBERTS: Yes. And now we're starting to get some evidence that the weather was a problem and the air as well. Some evidence that some of the other flights that were coming in to Buffalo Niagara International Airport were experiencing at least a minimal amount of icing.
Keith Burtis, thanks very much for being with us this morning and sharing your story.
BURTIS: Thank you.
ROBERTS: All right, thanks.
BURTIS: Bye.
CHETRY: And we're also getting video from our iReporters. One, Anthony Trigilio, sent us this video. He was on the scene just moments after the plane went down. He lives about a minute away by car and we talked to him earlier about what he saw when he got there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY TRIGILIO, CNN IREPORTER (voice-over): What happened was I parked about a block down the road, and on my way walking there, I saw a lot of people, most of them seemed really upset. A lot of people were walking around. I saw a lot of fire trucks and firemen and policemen. I asked a few people what was going on, and one person said that they thought there was a plane crash. That's when I found out.
You can kind of feel the heat, and you could certainly smell that something was burning, and it just was really chaotic. It was really hectic. You can really pinpoint a specific feeling, just because it was cold. It was starting to snow. It was slushy. It was frantic. You know, there are so many people. It was pretty chaotic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, if you're just joining us this morning, it's 26 minutes past 7:00 here in New York. It's a special edition of AMERICAN MORNING. We've been following the latest developments throughout the early hours of the night, and we want to bring you up- to-date now on what we know.
A team of NTSB investigators are due to arrive shortly now at the scene of this deadly plane crash outside of Buffalo, New York, in the town of Clarence Center. Forty-nine people are confirmed dead, all 48 on board, that would be 44 passengers and four crew members on this Continental commuter flight out of Newark, New Jersey, heading to Buffalo, have died and one man in the house, where this plane literally nose-dove into it, making a direct hit, also died. Incredibly, though, his wife and daughter in that house managed to escape. They were treated at a local hospital for minor injuries, along with two firefighters, treated for smoke inhalation, and a foot injury. All of the injuries believed to be minor.
What we know is that there were reports of icy conditions at the time of this crash. In fact, other pilots who were coming in to Buffalo Niagara airport after this plane crash reported ice as early as 20 miles out from Buffalo airport. At the time, nine volunteer firefighters responded to the scene. They said that the fire was so ferocious that they don't expect that crash investigators are even going to be able to really start navigating that site until about noon this morning, nearly 14 hours after the crash.
And again, emergency officials saying the only recognizable part of the plane after the fire was the tail. They do believe, though, that they will be able to recover both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder in the midst of all of that wreckage as well. And again, we are getting more details right now, but as to why this happened, what caused this 74-seat turboprop to crash, still not known this morning.
ROBERTS: All right. Getting a statement from the White House today, President Obama says, "Michelle and I are deeply saddened to hear the tragic accident outside of Buffalo last night. Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones. I want to thank the brave first responders who arrived immediately to try to save lives who are continuing to ensure the safety of everyone in the area. We pray for all of those who have been touched by this terrible tragedy, to find peace and comfort in the hard days ahead."
Statement this morning from President Obama on the crash of Colgan Flight 3407.
Now, the aircraft is a Dash 8, Q400 model, seats 74 people. It's a hearty aircraft. It's built by Bombardier, it's a Canadian pronunciation, French pronunciation. In this country, it's also known as Bombardier.
Our Jason Carroll has been taking a hard look at the safety record of this particular aircraft, and he joins us now with that.
Hi, Jason.
JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And hello to you, John. You know, a lot of questions about this one. Was it icing? Was it mechanical error? Was it pilot error?
These are just some of the things that the NTSB is going to be reviewing as soon as they get there. We are being told that the NTSB Go-Team is headed for the crash site. Just a short while ago the spokesperson told us what the team's priority will be once they get on the ground.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHEALANDER: Like I said we're trying to get to a crash site and gather evidence so that we can figure out what happened here, so maybe we can make some recommendations so it doesn't happen again. But our biggest interest right now is getting there and trying to add some comfort to the families if we can. A lot of people up there are hurting right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: And we've been trying to put together as much information about this type of plane. It was a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop. It's a 74-seat twin engine operated by Colgan Airways, a feeder airline for Continental. It was manufactured by De Havilland Canada. And according to our research, this is the first time there's been a crash involving fatalities on this particular type of aircraft in the United States.
Generally, this type of plane has a pretty good safety record. There have been 27 occurrences on the Dash 8. The last record of fatalities was in June 1995 in New Zealand.
As for the age of the plane that crashed in Buffalo, records show the first flight of this particular turbo prop was in 2008. So, this was a relatively new plane. The type of plane has had some problems in its past with fuel lines and landing gear. In fact, Scandinavian Airlines permanently grounded its fleets of Dash 8s after three crash landings related to landing gear problems in 2007.
Also the FAA said more maintenance checks were needed on the turboprop due to potential problems with the fuel system which could result in a fuel tank explosion. The pilots on board the Buffalo flight did not report a problem upon approach. Of course that doesn't mean there was not a problem. The NTSB again is going to be the one sorting all of this out. The only recognizable piece left of the plane seems to be a chunk of the tail section.
NTSB investigators will look for every part of the plane to try to reconstruct as much as they possibly can. A lot of potential causes of the crash here, but again, according to the NTSB, too early to suggest what really happened here.
ROBERTS: Jason Carroll for us this morning, thanks.
We have some pretty dramatic video making its way around the right landing gear on a couple of Dash 8s folding up, one of the Scandinavian aircraft and the other one in Colombia, and the New Zealand accident, the pilots managed to fly the plane into a hillside when they were worried about what was going on with the undercarriage when they were trying to fly in on approach to an airport there. So you know these things they've had some problems, Kiran, but not known for just falling out of the sky which apparently happened to Colgan 3407 last night.
CHETRY: And really the human tragedy in all of this can't be overstated. Relatives and family members, loved ones arriving at Buffalo Airport. We're going to show you some video just in now. We're getting word that about 30 relatives and others who arrived at the airport there, you see people hugging, consoling each other. They were escorted into a private area, and then taken by bus to a senior citizens center in the neighboring town of Chiqtuaga. That's where counselors, as well as representatives from Continental are waiting to help.
Colgan Air saying that and Continental saying that they're sending a response team, that they're doing everything they can to provide assistance and to contact family members. They also released a statement saying they extend deepest sympathies to the family members and loved ones of those involved in the accident. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the family members and loved ones of those involved in flight 3407.
Again, family members were trickling into the airport in the overnight hours as they learned about this tragedy, and then escorted by airport personnel into a private area. Again, all of this taking place as the command center around the crash site is slowly taking shape as well. There's still going to be several hours before they can start doing any investigating of the actual crash site, just because of the heat of the flames in this fire that was extinguished in the early morning hours.
Our reporter Lisa Scott is actually in Clarence Center. We had her live. She's now on the phone getting set up for a press conference, a news conference, scheduled to be taking place at the town hall.
Do you know what you hope to get an update on at this point, Lisa?
LISA SCOTT, FREELANCE REPORTER: Yes, we are hoping to talk a little bit more about where the investigation goes from here. You know, there's dozens of officials from federal, state and local levels, nine different fire departments. This is the command center. We're a few miles away from the scene on a long street, you know, just it's tons of media here. This is the type of thing that's never happened in western New York and as people are waking up today I'm sure there are so many people wondering if they knew anyone on board that fated crash, and also people are being told to stay away from the neighborhood where the crash happened.
There's about a perimeter, about a mile perimeter where it is blocked off. Certainly something that everyone is going to be talking about today. Just devastating news, 49 people killed, but also just absolutely amazing that only one house was damaged. The houses on either side minimal damage but it could have been just a far, far more devastating, but it is certainly a tragedy that western New Yorkers will be talking about for a long time, and we will be bringing you more information as we get it in the press conference which we're anticipating possibly between 8:00 and 9:00 here at Clarence town hall.
CHETRY: All right, Lisa Scott for us this morning, and of course we'll check in with you as soon as you get more details once that press conference is taking place. Thank you. ROBERTS: It's coming up now on 35 minutes after the hour. And updating you on our breaking news this morning. The fatal plane crash just outside Buffalo, New York. Here's what we know right now. Authorities confirm no survivors in the crash, in all, 49 lives were lost. 48 passengers and crew. There were 44 passengers, four crew members. One person on the ground inside the house that took a direct hit according to authorities. The Continental flight 3407 crashed around 10:20 p.m. last night in Clarence Center, just northeast of the airport, just minutes before it was to land.
There was no mayday call from the pilot. Authorities are investigating if weather was a factor. Officials say there was a mix of snow and sleet falling and a light fog and this morning, so many tragedies, personal stories and eyewitness accounts are coming in to CNN.
The brother of a woman on board spoke earlier. Let's listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now I'm thinking the worst, and I'm thinking about the fact that my mother has to fly home from Florida, and what I'm going to tell my two sons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right in front of the fire hall we see the fire. We were in his room and we heard it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was over there. You could hear the plane coming in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard the plane come in real loud. Thought it was going right over my house, and we heard it explode, and my whole room shook. So we look out the window.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A huge plume of red.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Red smoke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thought we'd check it out, came down here and it was nuts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: We were talking to our I-reporters as well, Anthony Trigilio was on the scene just after that plane went down. He lives about a minute's drive away from the crash site. We talked to him earlier about what he saw.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOICE OF ANTHONY TRIGILIO, I-REPORTER: As I had gotten closer, you can kind of feel the heat, and you could certainly smell that something was burning, and it just, it was really chaotic. It was really hectic. You couldn't really pinpoint a specific feeling, just because it was cold. It was starting to snow. It was slushy. It was frantic. You know, there are so many people. It was pretty chaotic.
CHETRY: We also hear that from emergency officials that the only recognizable part of the plane after the fire is the tail. They had nine volunteer fire departments and others in the area helping respond to that scene. Did you see any part of the plane?
TRIGILIO: I did not. Actually, at the time, I had arrived at the scene, there was nothing but a fireball. So I couldn't really pick out any specific part.
CHETRY: You live in the area, and we've had others who live in the area. In fact, one of our other callers that we spoke to a few moments ago talked about feeling that this was inevitable. This was bound to happen, because of how close the planes fly and how your town is in the flight pattern of landing at Buffalo, Niagara. Did you ever feel that way?
TRIGILIO: To be honest, I mean, I've lived here for something close to eight years, and I've seen planes ever since the first day I moved here, come overhead and I never would have thought that any one of them would have crashed. I guess now I got to start thinking twice.
CHETRY: And as we just heard from your local congressman, he said he believes this is the first time this has ever happened. You are going to have to think twice now or do you think this was just a freak situation, an unfortunate accident that probably will not be repeated?
TRIGILIO: Oh, it is a freak situation, but then again, I mean, there's been a lot of crashes, it seems, lately, and now it's just something to keep in the back of your head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: We've got audio as well from the air traffic controllers this morning, and in the moments before the crash, there did not appear to be any stress or fear from the flight crew. It seemed to be just a pretty routine approach. Let's take a listen to what followed after controllers realized that they had lost contact with flight 3407.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Approach
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delta 1998, look off your right side about five miles, for a Dash 8, it should be 2300, do you see anything there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative, Delta 1998, we're just off the bottoms, and nothing on the TCAS.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo? Colgan 3407, Buffalo here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delta 1998, you have VFR conditions there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo Tower, how do you hear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Need some ground communication, need to talk to someone at least five miles north northeast, OK, possibly Clarence. That area right in there, Akron area, either state police or Sheriff's dept, we need to find out if anything's on the ground. This aircraft was five miles out, all of a sudden we have no response from that aircraft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I can tell you is that we had an aircraft over the marker, and we're not talking to him now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Be right back, apparently we have an emergency. I'll get back as soon as I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For all aircraft this frequency, we did have a Dash 8 over the marker that didn't make the airport, he appears to be about five miles away from the airport.
For Delta 1998, I'm gonna bring you in on the approach, if you could give me a fire up(ph) when you get to 2300, and if you have any problem with the localiser, let me know, however we're showing all in the green here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ILS 23, and we're still in IMC here at 2300.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cactus, did you find Colgan?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately they said it went down right over the marker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tower, Cactus 1452 is caught up in is coming up on Klump, and uh, we just, we saw it down, you guys know what's going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cactus 1452, Buffalo Tower, winds 260 at 14, you're cleared to land, yes sir, we are aware.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
ROBERTS: It sounds like the pilot of that U.S. Airways flight identified by cactus may have seen the wreckage. Earlier we talked with John Tilmon. He's an aviation expert and former pilot. He says that the lack of fear and stress from the crew that was apparent from the audio recordings could mean that things went bad very quickly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM TILMON, FORMER PILOT: This accident started and ended catastrophically in a matter of seconds. I really don't think that there was much more time than that. From the time that they encountered something really awful and the time that the vessel struck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: We're also getting communications between air traffic controllers and other pilots in the area at the time of the crash. These are communications that occurred just after the crash. Those flights were reporting ice buildup on their wings.
Now we have sort of telescoped this down and we removed some of the gaps of silence here for the sake of time. Let's listen to those communications.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delta 1998, do you have any icing where you're at?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We picked it up on the way down. I don't think we're building any more here but about 6500 down the... about 3500 maybe?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Thank you, sir.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
CHETRY: All right. We're bringing in John Lucich. He's an aviation expert, commercial pilot for years and you've flown in these types of situations.
What's your read based on some of the information that we've collected throughout the morning as to what other pilots were describing and also what the conditions were in the Buffalo area at the time.
LUCICH: It's leading up to the fact that it could be icing more and more especially as we hear about more and more reports of icing coming from other pilots, as they're descending into the airport. And icing is a problem at the lower altitudes, especially when you're coming into a landing, which again builds up on the control surfaces.
You got to understand this is no small airplane. Like you pointed out before, this has a max takeoff wave of over 64,000 pounds. It's 107 feet long, 93-foot wide. The amount of ice building up on all these control surfaces could be a significant amount of weight which not only adds to drag but reduces lift and leads to disaster.
ROBERTS: John, could you explain for folks at home what rime ice is. You know people might think of ice and think they meant ice cube. Rime ice is quite different.
LUCICH: Yes. Rim icing actually builds up on control surfaces. But when you take a look at it, it looks like actually an orange peel, with little ripples all over it. And you'll know when you have it. But again these people were flying at night and to be able to see that 35 feet behind you when you're coming in for a final approach, when you're coming in to set up for a landing is not going to happen.
ROBERTS: Go ahead.
CHETRY: Just to then talk more to this point about the fact that there seems to be really nothing out of the ordinary in the transmissions between the air traffic control and these, the pilot and co-pilot in here, no concerns at 2,300 feet and the next thing you know, nothing. So can icing or can a problem with icing happen that fast that you're completely unaware and drop out of the sky?
LUCICH: Absolutely. Like John had talked about, the Indiana flight when I listened to those transmissions how quick that happened to them.
ROBERTS: Let me just set the scene for this. It's an American Eagle Flight 1994 was flying over Indiana in freezing rain. Suddenly ice built up and it fell out of the sky, just for folks at home that might not know the story.
LUCICH: Absolutely. And within seconds. Because I listened to that transmission. And remember I just want to say this that this is all speculation because we don't know. I'm not saying that the pilots did not see the ice that was there. We don't know.
ROBERTS: What happened with the American Eagle flight?
LUCICH: With the American Eagle flight, you listen to the transmission and the guy's just flying along, all of a sudden says, "what was that?" and all of the sudden he's out of the sky.
CHETRY: How do you reassure people that fly everywhere on a daily basis this couldn't happen to them? I mean, it seems so unbelievable.
LUCICH: Well, when you take look at what the major airlines are doing and the regional airlines are doing, they're flying better equipment, flying more sophisticated equipment. While I believe that, like you pointed out before, that you probably - that in aviation, you see less accidents with major airlines, than you do with the smaller aircraft.
I believe that most flights that go out of these airports, 99 percent of these flights are totally safe.
ROBERTS: You know further evidence that icing was a problem here. We heard the transmission between approach control and Delta 1998. There's also some communications between approach control and Cactus 1452, which is U.S. Airways flight, They call it cactus because of the merger with America West, based in Phoenix.
So Cactus reports that we've been picking up ice for the last 10 minutes or so, since about 10 to 20 miles south of the airport. Air traffic control says Cactus 1452, OK if you could, let me know when you get out of the ice. Aircraft coming up from the south reporting that earlier.
Cactus 1452 responds back the ice is starting to come off the windscreen now.
So if you've got ice on your wind screen I guess it would logically follow that you'd get it on your wings as well.
LUCICH: Oh absolutely. It's probably building up all your control surfaces. But you'll notice that because it's right in front of you.
CHETRY: So you said that it may be hard to know that you have ice because of the darkness and you can't see it. How did this pilot of the U.S. Airways know and perhaps the crew of the doomed did not?
LUCICH: Because he was looking at a piece that was more visible to him than wings 35 feet behind as you're sitting in this Q400.
ROBERTS: Also the other aircraft potentially the wings were down as well, you could see in the over wing, correct?
LUCICH: Right. Absolutely. There could be a variety of reasons why.
ROBERTS: you also talked about something earlier and I think it bears repeating that this aircraft does have robust deicing system and has electrical heaters on the blades of the propeller to shed any ice and it's got an inflatable boot system on the wings, and we saw that same sort of thing with the ATR-70, you had a very similar icing system when ice builds up on the control surface. It's the leading edge of the wings, they inflate those boots and it pops it off.
LUCICH: It breaks the ice.
ROBERTS: But there's a problem with that you said?
LUCICH: Yes, what happens is if you use it too often you don't allow the ice to build where it's breakable. And it expands out with the boot and then you're done. You can push those boots all day, it's not going to go far enough to pop them off. And now you've now deformed the wings and you got to take it on the ground ASAP. Otherwise, you're going to have those problems that you have on the flight.
And again and I want to say that we don't know if it's icing and we don't know what these guys saw or didn't see.
CHETRY: And do we know once we get a hold of the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder that we'll know or we might not need?
LUCICH: You know I think the flight data recorder is going to tell a story, because what you might not hear in voice we'll absolutely know what went on with that aircraft.
ROBERTS: It should record the deployment of the deicing system.
LUCICH: Absolutely. Everything. Absolutely, it should.
ROBERTS: We'll find out what happened. The weather, of course, was obviously a problem. Our Rob Marciano has been digging back through the archives of what happened last evening, and has come up with quite an interesting look at what the conditions were like in the air at the time.
Rob, what have you found out?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Definitely was snowing. We've been talking about the mist and the fog. So a number of wintry elements to make for not good travel no matter what kind of vehicle you may be driving or flying in. We want to give you a little rundown of what this flight, the path of this flight from when it took off into Newark last night.
This is flight explorer and it kind of give you the stats as we roll through from takeoff. By the way, there's about 4,800 flights in the air at the time.
So here we go, there's the flight number, 3407. On the left is the actual altitude at about 16,000 feet. So add a couple of zeros to that and then on the flight is your air speed, which is roughly 312 knots as it heads towards the border of Pennsylvania and New York state. Making the right turn around the Great Lakes and then it will start to slowly start its descent there.
And as we roll this through and it continues descent now, 14,400 feet, 13,100 feet, that little bit of a decrease in air speed, at about 280, 250 knots there, down to 90,000 feet; 8,400 feet and that's about where we lose the data there, at 6,400 feet.
Officially came off the radar scope at 5,300 feet and then interacting with, as we've been showing all morning long, a mixture of snow and mist and fog at the surface, but at the altitude where it lost radar contact, the air saturated for the most part, below freezing.
So that certainly can do any sort of rime or any ice buildup on any air surface, let alone an aircraft. So not a good situation there. All right, we go back to Google Earth and we'll show you where this thing came down in relation to the airport it was trying to land in.
It was making an approach at runway 23, so that's a southwesterly direction, flying into the wind. That would be ideal so there wasn't much of a cross wind. It was a pretty strong wind, gusting at about 25 miles an hour but landing directly into the wind. Approximately six miles from where it was supposed to land is the crash site and we've been showing you the neighborhood where that area of the crash is. Almost a Norman Rockwell-type of look at some old homes, well kept streets in an otherwise quiet neighborhood and community this morning anything but that, John, as this tragedy continues to unfold. So weather certainly not ideal by any means as this plane was making its approach.
ROBERTS: And you look at that measurement that you just showed us there on Google Earth, Rob, from the end of runway 23 up to Clarence Center where the plane went down, it is a straight line. It was coming in for a straight shot approach and just suddenly fell out of the sky. It wasn't making a turn or anything, just coming right in.
MARCIANO: And as our aviation experts have been talking about, you know, much like when a plane stalls, you know when a plane comes in for a landing, it's a planned stall so that it touches down as gently as possible and if the land wasn't there, they would fall out of the sky.
And when the aerodynamics of a plane are compromised like they would be if there is ice built up on the wings or the controls, apparently they can fall out of the sky quite rapidly and we'll see what the investigation unveils, but I can tell you this, from the atmosphere cross-section that our instruments that were sent up around 7:00, 8:00 around the Buffalo area, the weather balloons that were sent up show a high probability of rime buildup on any surface in that altitude.
ROBERTS: And again, we were hearing it from other pilots who were flying aircrafts in the area, not to suggest that icing was a cause of this crash, Rob.
But you know, coming in for an approach like that where you're flying slow, you're deploying a lot of flips and things and suddenly you get a lot of ice buildup and that wing stops flying and you go from an airplane to a rock in about a heartbeat. Rob Marciano this morning, thanks.
CHETRY: And perhaps most ironic is that the weather that we felt the most in terms of the cause of a lot of traffic and flight delays, yesterday was the severe winds we were experiencing here in the New York tri-state area and not in Buffalo where the winds were 13, 17 miles per hour. Here, a lot of flights were delayed because of just how vicious it was out there.
ROBERTS: Yes, this was delayed two hours, too, getting up there. It's suppose to leave after 7:00, but it didn't leave until after 9:00.
Well, this crash is just one of several major plane incidents in the past two months. January 15th, of course we all remember U.S. Airways Flight 1549 known as the miracle on the Hudson touched down in the Hudson River here in New York. All passengers and crew safe there in that extraordinary landing there caught on videotape.
Back on December 20th, another Continental Airlines flight veered off the runway in Denver during snowy conditions; 38 people were injured.
The last fatal crash in the United States prior to this one was on August 27th back in 2006. That's when 49 people on board a ComAir jet were killed when it crashed after takeoff in Lexington, Kentucky. An early morning flight. The pilots wandered on to the wrong runway. It was way short and they just ran off the end of the runway at speed.
CHETRY: One of our own members of the CNN family had a little bit of a scare. Our Donna Brazile, a CNN political contributor, flew into Buffalo last night. She joins us on the phone this morning.
Donna, I know that you didn't get any sleep and it was quite a scary day flying yesterday. What was your situation?
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, my original flight out of LaGuardia was canceled to Buffalo and the second flight, a backup flight that I had intended to take was also delayed. And so, I had a lecture at the University at the University of Buffalo and I wanted to make it. So, I went to JFK and took a later flight, it was a Delta flight.
I can tell you the wind conditions in New York, it was just gusty. We got off safely, but upon landing, the weather conditions in Buffalo, while not as windy as New York City, there was - it was raining, sleeting, snowing. The visibility was just zero.
I just closed my eyes and just, you know, kept praying and just said, OK. I know there is an airport down there and we landed and when I finished my lecture at around 10:15, I can tell you the weather conditions were pretty much the same. It was still blustery, a lot of rain and sleet, snow mixture.
And it was pretty awful, but I got back to my hotel and a few minutes later, I heard a lot of sirens. I wasn't far from the airport and then, of course, the breaking news. And so my heart is heavy this morning for the people on that flight and also the people in the neighborhood because it was quite an experience yesterday flying.
CHETRY: You know, I have to tell you I used to be a reporter for some years up in Erie, Pennsylvania and my family was in D.C., I flew through Buffalo a lot just because it was less expensive. And they are used to this weather and landing in conditions that seemed far worse than this but you're right, it is scary. And I've done the same thing where sort of just close your eyes and pray for the best, especially in those types of conditions.
What just seems so startling about this and perhaps you can weigh in, is that all the transmissions, the communications between air traffic control and the pilots on this flight seem normal, up until they just lost contact about a minute after being cleared to come down at 2300 feet. And that's what seems to be terrifying about all of this is just because it just seems like it just came out of nowhere.
BRAZILE: Yes. Again, when I got out of the lecture and everyone was telling me to put on my hat and they were afraid because I told them I'm a southerner and I'm not used to all the (INAUDIBLE) and sleet. But it was pretty intense in terms of the downpour.
It was consistent and, you know, some of the people around me who are a lot braver than I am in terms of being in weather conditions like that, I tend to be very cautious of how I walk and where I go, but it was - I just wanted to get back to my hotel room because I said, look, it's getting nasty outside.
So, again, my prayers are with the people. I know that in addition to the fatalities on the plane, there was one in the neighborhood and, of course, one or two of the firemen also were injured. So, again, my prayers are with the people there.
CHETRY: Yes. It's such a sad tragic situation. You just landed back in D.C. this morning. What was it like being at the Buffalo Airport this morning? I mean, was there a real palpable sense of loss there as you were trying to get back to D.C.?
BRAZILE: Yes. It was very solemn. I got there a little early. Lots of people, big line at TSA, but they opened up an extra line so that they could get people through. But just a lot of security and TSA representatives and just everybody was just hanging on to each other.
But we had a great flight back. The wind conditions are a lot better today and, of course, the pilot told us up front that they wanted to spend as much time deicing the airplane and I said, amen, just, please, deice it as long as you have to, but it was a good flight. I thank god for pilots and others who really take care of us.
CHETRY: Absolutely. Donna Brazile, thanks so much. Donna Brazile on a 5:30 flight last night out of the New York area to Buffalo. Again, this flight, the doomed flight that crashed was supposed to be taking off 7:00 and 7:30 and ended up being delayed two hours, not taking off until 9:20.
ROBERTS: Yes. And you know, the weather conditions are so changeable up there in the Buffalo area. One second, everything is fine and the next, you're getting some icing conditions and appeared to be about 3,500 and 6,000 feet according to some other pilots in the area and that's exactly where that aircraft descended through on its way in to the airport. So that obviously is a point of investigation for the NTSB team which should be arriving there shortly.
We will take a short break, continuing coverage this morning of the tragedy of Colgan Flight 3407. We'll be back with more on CNN right after this.
It's 57 minutes after the hour.
