A Continental flight carrying 44 passengers, a crew of four and one off-duty pilot, crashed into a house about five miles (eight kilometers) from Buffalo Niagara International Airport on Thursday night, killing all on board and one person on the ground, officials said. The plane, Continental Connection Flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo, made a direct hit on the house in Clarence Center, N.Y., about five minutes before it was due to land, said David Bissonette, the emergency coordinator for Erie County. “It's remarkable that it only took one house,” Bissonette said. “It could have easily taken the whole neighborhood.” The Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 with twin turboprop engines was operated by Colgan Airways, a feeder airline for Continental. The plane was carrying 5,000 pounds (2,270 kg) of fuel and apparently exploded on impact. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said there was no indication terrorism was involved. 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 showed any concerns that anything is out of the ordinary moments before the crash. It was the first fatal crash of a commercial airliner in the US in 2 1/2 years and the second major one in a month in New York State, coming weeks after the Jan. 15 forced landing of a US Airways jet into the Hudson River in which all 155 people on board were pulled to safety.
