BUFFALO, N.Y. — Seats are upright. Belts are buckled. Trays are up. Flight 3407 is beginning its descent to Buffalo Niagara International Airport. Then something suddenly goes terribly wrong.
The 44 passengers are lifted from their seats — like on a roller coaster — very abruptly and repeatedly. Simultaneously, they are forcefully jostled from side to side.
But the severe pitches and rolls would have ended within 26 seconds when the plane hit the ground.
Pilots and experts say a sense of panic was likely setting in among passengers on the turboprop Continental commuter plane, but they probably did not have time to realize they were crashing.
“Just panic. They were feeling things they’ve never felt before, but it wouldn’t have been, ‘We’re going down. We’re going down,’ ” said Skip Moshner, a pilot and instructor for the type of plane that crashed Thursday night in Clarence, N.Y., barely three minutes from touchdown.
“Nobody suffered in this crash,” Moshner said.
The Associated Press
