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Flight 3407 Families Visit Site, Recorders StudiedSOURCE The sounds of the last moments in the cockpit could be clues to the cause of a crash that came violently and suddenly, with the doomed plane dropping steeply and pitching and rolling like a rollercoaster. They also plan to scrutinize all pieces of the engines to learn whether the plane was intact when it hit the ground. Steven Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board said the engines would be taken by crane from the debris field on Monday. Families of the victims visited the site Monday. They boarded several buses at the hotel where they are staying and drove to the crash site with police escort. On Sunday, investigators discussed the plane's final moments, revealing that the plane that crashed Thursday near Buffalo gyrated wildly out of control in the seconds before it fell to the ground and burst into flames. Flight 3407's nose whipped upward as if the plane was on a roller coaster, then shot down toward the ground, said Chealander. Its wings were rocking so violently that the plane was nearly upside down for a moment, Chealander said. As it bucked in the sky, it was also plummeting. The plane fell from 1,800 feet to 1,000 feet in five seconds, according to radar data released by Chealander. All 49 people aboard the flight from Newark to Buffalo and a man on the ground died in the impact and intense fire. The harrowing new details released Sunday did little to explain why what had been a routine flight into Buffalo Niagara International Airport suddenly went out of control. Among the possibilities is that ice had formed on the wings, which can degrade a plane's ability to stay aloft. The pilots had commented earlier in the flight that "significant" ice was forming on the windshield and wings, according to conversations revealed by the crash-proof cockpit recorder. But the plane's sophisticated anti-icing system had been in operation since 11 minutes after the plane left Newark, Chealander said. Preliminary information indicates that the plane had not encountered "severe" icing, he said. The plane's autopilot was steering until it automatically switched off when a system on the plane began warning the pilots that they were flying too slow. The manufacturer of the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 advises operators not to use the autopilot in icing conditions, but switching off the autopilot is not required unless icing conditions are severe. That did not appear to be the case, Chealander said. Colgan Air, a regional carrier that operated the flight under contract with Continental, trains its pilots in how to deal with winter weather every year, Chealander said. By Sunday, authorities had recovered the remains of 15 people from the wreckage as crews raced to finish their work before a storm arrives later in the week. Erie County Executive Chris Collins said recovery efforts intensified after the arrival of additional federal workers. A storm forecast for Wednesday added to the urgency. The storm could hamper recovery efforts, but "the investigation will continue, snow, rain or shine," said David Bissonette, the town's emergency coordinator. Recovery crews could need as much as four days to remove the remains from the site. Chealander described the efforts as an "excavation." "Keep in mind, there's an airplane that fell on top of a house, and they're now intermingled," he said. DNA and dental records will be used to identify the remains, he said. Once all the remains are recovered, the focus will turn to removing wreckage of the 74-seat aircraft from the neighborhood.
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