According to a CNN report on its website, the plane's final 800-foot (about 244 meters) fall took five seconds, Steve Chealander of the National Transportation Safety Board was quoted as saying.
The 50-seat commuter plane, Continental Express Flight 3407 operated by Colgan Air, was flying from Newark to Buffalo when it dived into a single-home house in Clarence Center on Thursday.
All 49 people aboard, including 44 passengers and five crewmembers, were killed. A 61-year-old man in the house also died, but his wife and daughter were able to escape with minor injuries.
Final motions of the aircraft were so "drastic" that the plane's autopilot automatically disengaged and warnings sounded, Chealander said, citing information from the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
Also, a "stick-shaker" device, which noisily vibrated an airplane's controls to warn the pilot of imminent stall, kicked in, he said.
Chealander told a press conference on Friday that cockpit voice recording showed that the crew were discussing "significant" ice buildup on the aircraft's windshield and wings shortly before the plane crashed, although the pneumatic icing boots were switched on.
When turned on, pneumatic icing boots would usually expand and break free ice that has developed at the wings' edges, he said.
The CNN report said icing has become a focus as a possible cause of the tragedy, while Chealander said the actual cause of the crash remained unclear Saturday.
The crash is reportedly America's deadliest since a Comair commuter jet crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, on Aug. 27, 2006, killing 49 people.
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