Recovering crash remains a methodical process

Source: Associated Press

Recovering crash remains a methodical process

By WILLIAM KATES – 51 minutes ago


CLARENCE, N.Y. (AP) — Experts who helped identify victims from Flight 93's crash in a Pennsylvania field on 9/11 have joined the search for remains from a commuter plane's crash site outside Buffalo.

Continental Flight 3407 dropped from the sky late Thursday night onto a suburban Buffalo home, killing all 49 people on board the plane and one person in the house.

The job of identifying remains takes time, experts said, which can be difficult for grieving families.

"You have to have a balance," said Wallace Miller, the Somerset County coroner who helped identify the victims of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001.

"You want to give the families closure — but it has to be a painstaking, step-by-step process," Miller said.

Compared to other commercial plane crashes, the debris field in Clarence is tiny. It takes up the house and the property lot. In Shanksville, it covered 70 acres.

But the plane crashing into a house adds a different dimension to the recovery effort, with the debris from the plane and the home intermingling, said Steve Chealander, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, along with the FBI.

Chealander has likened the effort to an excavation, and said the recovery of human remains "has priority" over other parts of the investigation.

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In Shanksville, where the plane crashed going nearly 600 mph, authorities were able to recover only about 8 percent of potential remains, Miller said. Nevertheless, authorities were able to identify all 44 people who died in the crash, although it took nearly six months, he said.

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