Woman was watching TV when plane crashed into home
Last Updated: Friday, February 13, 2009 | 4:10 PM ET
The Associated Press
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The woman who survived a commuter plane crashing into her suburban Buffalo, N.Y., home said she and her daughter were watching television when the aircraft smashed through the roof, pinning them in the wreckage.
Karen Wielinski told Buffalo radio station WBEN-AM that she was in the family room of her home in Clarence and her 22-year-old daughter Jill was upstairs.
"Planes do go over our house, but this one just sounded really different, louder, and I thought to myself, 'If that's a plane, it's going to hit something,"' she told the station. "The next thing I knew, the ceiling was on me."
The plane struck the two-storey, gabled house in Clarence Center at about 10:25 p.m. ET and burst into flames, killing 49 people on board and one on the ground. Wielinski said she managed to crawl out of a hole in the wreckage as fire erupted around her. Her daughter escaped in a similar manner.
Wielinski said she still hasn't been told of the fate of her husband, Doug, who was in another part of the house but she added: "He was a good person, loved his family."
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