Woman whose home was destroyed by Buffalo plane crash says pilots shouldn’t take all blame

Plane crash survivor: Don’t just blame pilots

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — The woman who survived a plane plummeting into her suburban Buffalo home said Wednesday the pilots do not deserve all the blame for the crash that killed her husband and everyone aboard the flight.

Karen Wielinski joined a small group of other victims’ relatives at a hotel near Buffalo Niagara International Airport to watch a broadcast of the second day of a federal hearing into the Feb. 12 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators continued to focus on the pilots’ training and performance as the Newark, N.J., to Buffalo flight approached the airport in icy conditions. Testimony indicated the pilots reacted incorrectly to events that led to the crash and the deaths of all 49 people on board.

“It’s upsetting, but I still think it’s a combination of everything,” Wielinski said in her first extended public comments since the crash. “They’re individuals, they’re human, but I think you have to look at the bigger picture, training.”

“I don’t think all the blame should be put on them,” she said, adding she feels sorry for the pilots’ families for having to endure the scrutiny.

Wielinski and her 22-year-old daughter, Jill, managed to crawl from their flattened two-story home virtually unhurt as it was consumed by flames. Her husband, Doug, a 61-year-old engineer and Vietnam veteran, was trapped inside.

The hearing is answering some of Karen Wielinski’s questions, but she knows other answers will remain elusive.

“I mean, why did it land on our house? Why did it not go to another field that was right behind us?” she said. “That’s stuff that’s just not going to be answered.”

Wielinski said the NTSB’s computer animation recreating the flight’s final moments gave her a better idea of what happened the night the plane fell on her as she watched TV in her family room about 10:15 p.m.

Wielinski watched the recreation at home Tuesday, rather than with the passenger families gathered at the hotel ballroom for the hearing’s first day. She thought it would have been too hard to be there as the families saw what their loved ones went through.

“My husband Doug didn’t realize what was going to happen to him. It was instantaneous, that’s my hope,” she said. “Unfortunately, those people on the plane had time to think about things. So I didn’t want to bear their sorrow yesterday, but I did want to meet them and support some of them.”

Wielinski hopes the hearing will produce changes that prevent such accidents in the future.

“All I can say is your life can change in an instant,” she said. “You just never know.”