Wow, this is like a weird combination of two parts of American history: The interstate highway system and the buffalo. We blame Ted Turner for this.
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Bush nearly pulled the Buffalo trigger in 2002. Imagine this scene. You’re living in Buffalo in 2002, probably sitting in a restaurant eating some wings or a garbage plate or something like that. All of a sudden, you see soldiers running through the street, attempting to arrest some terrorists. You’d be freaked out, right? Well, the Bush Administration was considering doing just this in 2002 in an attempt to arrest the terrorists who later became known as the Lackawanna Six. Guess who was pushing for this approach? That’s right. Dick Cheney. source
$16,254 a yearthe amount co-pilot Rebecca Shaw made; she once had to augment the job with part-time work at a coffee shop in our former home town of Norfolk, Va. (please don’t be Fair Grounds … Yikes!)
2,800 milesthe length of Shaw’s commute; she lived with her parents in Seattle (probably because she was broke) but worked out of Newark, N.J. She often slept on couches in her crappy company’s pilot’s lounge source
A big no-no With the conditions outside pretty cruddy, pilots flying to Buffalo needed to take extra care about ice on their planes’ wings. The National Transportation Safety Board tells them not to fly their planes on autopilot in such a situation. But the plane that crashed and killed 50 people was on autopilot, possibly violating federal safety recommendations.
“Significant” ice buildup The pilots of the plane, who also died in the crash, were aware of the ice on the plane and discussed it shortly before the crash. Colgan Air, the operators of the plane, had installed deicing systems specifically for this purpose, but it’s unknown when the pilots chose to turn them on. In unrelated news, this guy is lucky he wasn’t on the plane. source
We know she was on that plane, and now she’s with him.
Sue Bourque • sister of Beverly Eckert, who was on the plane that crashed in Buffalo. Eckert’s husband, Sean Rooney, died in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and she became a noted advocate for victims’ families as part of the group Voices of September 11. Eckert, along with other family members of victims, met with President Barack Obama just a week ago. • source
I did not see any landing gear. I saw the underbelly of the plane fairly well. There was nothing burning on the plane and no physical damage. Nothing seemed wrong, except it was on a bad path.
Tony Tatro • A man who witnessed the plane crash while he was driving. He also noted that the plane was unusually loud before it crashed into a home in Clarence Center, N.Y., outside of Buffalo • source
