Charlotte FireFighters work at the scene of a commuter plane crash early Wednesday morning just off of runway 18 right at Charlotte Douglas International airport.
Charlotte FireFighters from airport station # 17 arrived on site in about 2 minutes to battle the fire that was fed by an estimated 2400 lbs of jet fuel. This commuter plane crash into the US Air Airways Hanger and Maintenance Bldg on airport property.
A fast coordinated fire attack by the CFD Crash Fire Trucks resulted in the fire being contained in a matter a minutes. A primary search was also under way but the impact and crash resulted in all 21 people on board being killed.
Charlotte Fire Chief Luther L. Fincher Jr took over Incident Command upon his arrival and worked quickly to keep the firefighters safe and secure the area.
The Incident Command was passed over to NTSB at approximately 1500 hours that afternoon/8) and the Charlotte Fire Dept continues to work in a support role along side NTSB investigators. Besides the Charlotte Fire Dept Airport firefighters on site, there are is the CFD HazMat & DeCon team, USAR-1 under the direction of Rescue-10, Fire Academy Training Officers, support services from the CFD Command staff and Charlotte/Mecklenburg Emergency Management. The Charlotte Fire Department Chaplin, along with other public safety Chaplin's has been onsite working the fence line in support of the many workers throughout this ordeal.
Note: As of midday Friday (1/10) NO Injuries have been reported by ANY public safety official on site. All 21 crash victims were recovered by the Charlotte Fire Dept and support agencies just before sunset on Thursday. The final NTSB media briefing from Charlotte took place Friday afternoon. The families of the victims were taken to the crash site by 2 charter buses and offered a walk through the crash site around 2:00 pm Friday. Afterwards, a media pool was also granted access to the crash site. The last commercial plane crash in this area was US Airway # 1016, July of 1994.
Related:
