An aerial view shows the site where Continental Flight 3407 crashed into a home near Buffalo, N.Y. All 49 people on board were killed, along with one person on the ground. (Derek Gee/The Buffalo News/Associated Press) A multi-faith memorial service in Clarence Center, N.Y., paid tribute Monday to the 50 victims of last week's crash of a Continental Airlines commuter plane, including one Canadian.

The Canadian-built Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turbo prop crashed into a two-storey house Thursday night, killing all 49 passengers and crew and one person in the building.

Nearly 2,000 people packed the town's Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church for Monday's service.

"I talked to a couple of people attending today who say they had to come as a way to get through their grief," the CBC's Derek Stoffel said. "One man knew three people on the plane and hasn't yet come to terms with what happened."

'Not just the families that are grieving'

Rev. Karl Eastlack, a pastor at the church, told CBC News on Monday about a firefighter who was at the scene of Thursday's crash and was struggling to cope with the tragedy.

"He says the last two nights he's hardly been able to sleep," Eastlack said. "Every time he drifts off to sleep, he has these horrendous nightmares. It's not just the families that are grieving — we have people right in the middle of all of this and seeing horrific sights that none of the rest of us want to see.

"But I am so proud of Clarence Center and the western New York community here for the way that they so rapidly pulled together," he said.

Before the service began, the church bell rang 50 times to honour each victim of the crash. Outside, a makeshift memorial of flowers took shape in tribute to those who died.

Also Monday, families of the victims toured the site of the catastrophic accident for the first time, with a police escort, leaving red roses dangling from temporary fencing and in a semicircle on the ground.

A mourner pauses before leaving flowers at a makeshift memorial to the crash victims on Monday. (Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press)The families had been sequestered in a hotel, but on Monday they boarded several buses and were taken to the scene, 16 kilometres northeast of Buffalo.

The site of the house — on a quiet, tree-lined street in a middle-class neighborhood — is now an almost empty dirty lot. All that is left are a garage with a scorched door, a basketball hoop, four steps leading to nowhere, a mailbox with the number 6038 on its side, and the plane's enormous tail.

The two closest homes, each no more than a metre from the lot, appear almost untouched.

Video shot by a neighbour just moments after the crash shows the house blazing, with searing flames shooting dozens of metres into the air.

Recovery effort continues

U.S. federal aviation officials, police, firefighters and investigators from the airline and Bombardier searched through the wreckage of Continental Airlines Flight 3407 on Monday, uncovering parts that could provide important clues about the turboprop plane's final moments.

National Transportation Safety Board member Steve Chealander said investigators have located the steering column, or yoke; all the propeller blades; five of six de-icing valves; and rubber bladders designed to protect the tail from ice.

Flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders have already been found and partially analyzed.

Speaking to CBC News on Monday morning, the transportation safety board's Chealander said the flight data recorder showed that the plane pitched violently up and down, then rolled past the vertical just seconds before it plunged 250 metres and crashed in flames.

Inside the aircraft, passengers and crew would have experienced rapid changes in gravitational forces of up to twice normal gravity.

Chealander said he couldn't comment about how horrifying it might have been for those on board.

"That's a question that the families have asked me several times," Chealander said. "I cannot answer that…. I don't know. I wasn't there."

Speculation that the crash might have been caused by ice is premature, he said.

The cockpit voice recorder has the pilots discussing "significant" ice buildup on the wings and cockpit windscreen, and other aircraft had also been experiencing icing.

"I would caution everyone not to pre-judge, not to jump to conclusions," Chealander said. "We have talked a lot about icing but we will not come out and say that [was the cause] yet."

Full power before crash

On Sunday, officials released more details of the last minute of the plane's ill-fated descent.

Chealander said the aircraft's flight data recorder shows that the autopilot disengaged and the engine power was advanced to full 20 seconds before the recording ended.

Chealander said the aircraft's de-icing system was turned on 11 minutes after departure from Newark, N.J., and remained on for the rest of the flight.

Questions have been raised about why the plane was flying on autopilot during icy conditions.

The NTSB recommends that in these circumstances, pilots fly a plane manually so they have a better feel for how it may be changing in flight because of the ice.

However, Chealander said the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has not yet made it a rule that the autopilot must be disengaged when ice builds up.

He said Bombardier, the aircraft's manufacturer, recommends in the flight manual that the autopilot not be used in "severe icing conditions."

Not 'a bad weather day'

Chealander said when the flight left Newark, the crew was told that the weather in Buffalo was "light to moderate icing," with snow and light mist and visibility of 4.8 kilometres.

"It was really not a bad weather day," he said.

Chealander said radar data shows the aircraft fell about 240 metres in five seconds shortly before impact.

As of Sunday evening, 15 bodies had been identified and officials were working to establish the formal identities of everyone on the passenger list and the lone victim on the ground, Chealander said.

The CBC's Stoffel, reporting from the crash scene, said rescue efforts are being intensified because of fears that a severe winter storm could hit on Wednesday.

With files from the Associated Press