Forty-nine people have been killed after a passenger plane crashed into a house in Buffalo, New York.

All 44 passengers and four crew aboard Continental Airlines Flight 3407 lost their lives, as well as one person on the ground, according to officials in Erie County, Buffalo.

The flight from Newark was around six miles from the airport when it crashed into a home in Clarence Center, a Buffalo suburb, bursting into a ball of flame at around 22:10 local time (03:10 GMT).

The federal aviation administration said it is not clear what caused the crash, which occurred amid rain and sleet.

Three people were in the house hit by the plane, said Erie County official Chris Collins, with two managing to escape while the other was killed.

"The tail of the plane is sticking out of the ground," he told CNN.

"Obviously, it exploded upon impact. So there was a lot of fire initially. It landed - or it came down right next to the fire hall. So there were firemen on this scene within literally seconds of it going down.

"I can't say enough about what the firefighters did, rushing right in as you might expect they would - a very heroic effort. But there were no survivors."

There had been little communication between the plane and Buffalo air traffic control officials prior to the crash, said Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority spokesman C Douglas Hartmayer.

"I was told by the tower the plane simply dropped off the radar screen," he was quoted by the Buffalo News as saying.

ABC News reports that a recording of a conversation between Flight 3407's female pilot and air traffic controllers went along routine lines as the plane neared Buffalo.

The controller subsequently reported having lost contact with the passenger plane.

The aircraft is believed to have been a Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft, a twin-engine liner with a capacity of about 74.


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