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Excavation of Buffalo Crash "Will Take Days"

by Jordan Yerman | February 14, 2009 at 01:51 pm

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A rep from the BTSB is telling the assembled press that the excavation of the crash site will take "3 to 4 days", as the extent of the damage caused by Continental Flight 3407's crash into a Buffalo house was so great. This means that not all of the bodies are yet recovered. He's also saying that the plane landed flat (as opposed to nose-down) and was facing the wrong direction, away from Buffalo Airport, when it hit.

Ice remains a likely cause of the crash, but the NTSB is still investigating other possibilities.

Some transcripts of the flight's final moments can be found here.

National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Steve Chealander said the tail was relatively intact and the cockpit and both wings had been found. He said the airplane probably had landed horizontally, not vertically as had been thought.

He would not say it was in a flat spin, but he did say it was fair to say the plane had little forward motion. Both engines were working.