Man emerged as leader in wake of crash

CLARENCE, N.Y. (WIVB) - In the moments just after the crash of flight 3407, first responders rushed to the scene.

News 4 recently sat down with David Bissonette, the man who emerged as the calm and compassionate leader in the wake of the crash.

In those first critical hours following the crash of flight 3407, one man stepped up to become the face of composure in the wake of tragedy.

On February 12, 2009, a long say of monitoring local flooding, was about to become even longer for David Bissonette, when the call went out that a plane had crashed in Clarence Center.

Bissonette said, "Aircraft and airplane down can mean so many things, but that tail was the tell tale sign."

The images of the crash scene, David Bissonette says, and the emotion upon realizing that there would be many casualties, had to be put off while he addressed the job of organizing response efforts, from extinguishing the fire, to evacuating residents, to recovering bodies.

"For me, I have my own strategies about keeping the emotion out of the function," said Bissonette. "For me, it was about keeping it neutral."

Bissonette said, "For me, I kept it to numbers. These people were about their addresses."

"And that made it for me, more of a professional relationship," said Bissonette.

David Bissonette remained hyper focused for days and weeks, he kept the information flowing by holding twice daily briefings.

"Every time we did a news conference, everybody on the panel had bullet points and I asked them to stick to them. That proved to be a positive, so we didn't get backed into a corner of info we didn't have," said Bissonette.

The emotions came later for Bissonette when he escorted families back to their homes.

"The hug from the little old lady, the handshake from the father of three. Now it's emotional, and forever more emotional," said Bissonette. "We all carry a piece of this with us. It was a life changing tragedy."