At about 10:20 EST, Continental Flight 3407 (also reported as 1304), a commuter plane out of Newark, crashed into a home in Buffalo, New York. According to reports, all 48 people aboard -- 44 passengers and four crew members -- and one person on the ground were killed.
The scene is currently engulfed in flames. The plane had been quite late departing Newark was arriving two hours past its scheduled time when it crashed about 10 miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport. The Q400 Bombardier aircraft was flying in fog, snow and wind.
After last month's crash landing of a US Airways flight, airline stocks have taken quite a hit, all down as much as 50% since their highs in early January. Good news for the crew of flight 1549 did not translate into good news for US Airways (NYSE: LCC), and certainly not for Continental Airlines Inc. (NYSE: CAL). Though the airline's stock will likely see big volatility at the start of trading on Friday, I don't expect this news to majorly impact the fortunes of either Continental or US Airways over the next 30 days.
Flash: Continental flight from Newark crashes in Buffalo, New York
Posted Feb 13th 2009 12:25AM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Contl Airlines'B' (CAL)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-13-2009 @ 1:19AM
evelynshore44 said...
3407 is correct flight number. 1304 is not recognized by Continental.
2-13-2009 @ 5:21AM
Eternal said...
wow how unfortunate for all of those passengers. I hope no one was home at the time, and that home is destroyed hope they have home owners insurance
2-13-2009 @ 6:01AM
mobugobu said...
This is really tragic. My condolences to the bereaved families.
2-13-2009 @ 8:19AM
Deborah Nichols said...
The family was home at the time of the accident. The mother and daughter made it out. The father did not. My heart breaks for all the families and friends who lost loved ones in this tragedy.
2-13-2009 @ 9:44AM
XecutionKrK said...
Sadly a bad year for aviation. Industry works so hard to improve their technology, but there are flaws. Just don't want this to happen anyone.
2-13-2009 @ 1:29PM
Iridium said...
My condolences to the families but we have a serious problem with air travel.
I will tell you right now that the bankrupt airlines are not doing the proper maintenance on the planes. They are also forcing planes in the air when they shouldn't be flying.
I fly somehere every month and so far this year I have been on three grounded planes due to engine failure. One plane that had a failure warning that did take off after two hours only to have hydraulic failure in flight. The left flap was stuck and the pilot had to trim the flight controls and take a wide turn. He nursed the plane down but only after 15 minutes of filght terror dropping several hundred feet with violent turbulence.
I also fear that airports and airlines are hiring technicians that are undertrained and not worthy of maintaining something as important as an airplane. If a car mechanic screws something up you might get an accident when people get hurt, or maybe a few deaths. If you screw up an airplane you kill a lot of people.
I am truly becoming afraid to fly and I have flown all my life. I have never seen this many problems with planes.
2-13-2009 @ 3:56PM
daniel said...
I flew many times from vermont to Newark on a continental Q400,i never liked it,it does not run on jet engines and the ride was noisy,bumpy and sometimes scary.