Continental Flight 3407 Aftermath and Media Coverage

If you haven’t been following WNYMedia’s coverage of the cleanup, recovery and investigation of the crash of Flight 3407, here’s a catchup of what we’ve seen and how we’re reporting it:

Marc Odien and Brian Zabka have been attending the daily press briefings and putting video of the proceedings on YouTube and our frontpage.

They also have an aerial view of the crash scene

Marc has been attending the press conferences and reporting primarily via Twitter.

Since the night of the crash, most of our reporting on the incident has been done “off-platform”.  Meaning that we are using social media tools like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube to to provide the coverage while using our homepage as a storage repository.  It’s a bit different than the way most media outlets provide coverage in that they typically use social media tools to drive traffic back to their own websites, in effect, they use social media to amplify their coverage…not provide it.

It is both a matter of necessity for us since we are not equipped with a live truck, satellite uplink and the tools that establishment media outlets have at their disposal and a matter of letting you the choose the channel on which you’d like to receive your updates.  It’s an idea we have been toying with for some time and I think it is finally congealing in our heads.

I have more to say about media coverage of the tragedy from establishment outlets, bloggers and social media contributors, but I’ll save that for another day.  Stay tuned on all of our various channels for daily updates as they become available.

Continental Airlines Flight 3407 Crash Photos From The Scene

WNYMedia.net’s Sharyn Brunner was onsite getting as many photos as possible of the crash scene in Clarence tonight

After the jump, you’ll see a slideshow of the set on flickr

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Continental Airlines Flight 3407 Air Traffic Control Audio

It is yet to be confirmed by authorities that this is the audio between the Air Traffic Control (KBUF) and various aircraft in the area at the time of the crash, including Continental Airlines Flight 3407.

Continental Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, was en route from Newark, New Jersey, when it went down, said Bill Peat with New York State Emergency Management in Albany. The crash occurred about seven miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport just after 10PM.

We are awaiting official confirmation at the 4AM press conference, but this has also been cited by both CNN and Fox as being the possible audio.  You can hear the female pilot’s transmissions throughout the file and her last transmission at about 16 minutes in and the ATC realizes the plane may be in trouble at roughly 17:30 and they alert external authorities at roughly 21 minutes into the file.

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Continental Airlines Flight 3407 Crashes In Clarence, NY

Video from the scene will be uploaded shortly.

From the AP:

UPDATE; Officials say no survivors; 44 passengers, 4 crew members were on board

BUFFALO, New York – New York state police said a 50-passenger commuter plane has crashed into a home in suburban Buffalo.

Fire officials said there were no survivors.

Authorities said Continental Airlines Flight 3407 was operated by Manassas, Va.-based Colgan Air. It was en route from Newark, N.J. to Buffalo. The FAA confirmed to NBC News producer Jay Blackman that there were 44 passengers and 4 crew members on board.

State Trooper John Manthey said the plane hit a house in Clarence around 10:10 p.m. EST Thursday. The house is engulfed in flames.

He says they don’t know whether there were any passengers on the plane. They also don’t know if there were any injuries in the home.

Manthey says the plane may have been headed to Buffalo Niagara International Airport. He says authorities have called the Federal Aviation Administration.