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Colgan Air Flight 3407

2009 aviation accident in the U.S.

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ873485
Source-derived summary

Colgan Air Flight 3407 was a scheduled passenger flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. Approaching Buffalo, the Bombardier Q400 entered an aerodynamic stall from which it did not recover and crashed into a house at 6038 Long Street in Clarence Center, New York, at 10:17 pm EST (03:17 UTC), about 5 miles (8 km; 4 nmi) from the end of the runway, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board and one person inside the house.

The National Transportation Safety Board conducted the accident investigation and published a final report on February 2, 2010, that identified the probable cause as the pilots' inappropriate response to stall warnings.

Colgan Air staffed and maintained the aircraft used on the flight that was scheduled, marketed, and sold by Continental Airlines under its Continental Connection brand. Families of the accident victims lobbied the U.S. Congress to enact more stringent regulations for regional carriers and to improve the scrutiny of safe operating procedures and the working conditions of pilots. The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 (Public Law 111–216) required some of these regulation changes.

At the time, it was the deadliest aviation accident involving a Bombardier Q400 and remained so until the crash of US-Bangla Airlines Flight 211 nine years later.

Aircraft and crew

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a Bombardier Q400, MSN 4200, registered as N200WQ, that was manufactured by Bombardier Aviation in April 2008. In its 10 months of service, the aircraft accumulated 1819 airframe hours and 1809 takeoff and landing cycles. It was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A engines.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Colgan Air Flight 3407” as 2009 aviation accident in the U.S. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2010, 2008, 1819—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Colgan, Flight and aviation can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 2009 aviation accident in the U.S. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q873485. Authority coordinates are 43.012, -78.639. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 2010, 2008 and 1819.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Colgan Air Flight 3407”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Colgan Air Flight 3407 primary sources, Colgan Air Flight 3407 archive and Colgan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Colgan Air Flight 3407” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.