Witnesses of the New York air crash have reported hearing an explosion moments before the aircraft came down.
One said he thought he saw an engine on the American Airlines Airbus A300 blow up.
Another told CNNshe heard a loud explosion and reported seeing pieces of "silvery metal" falling from the sky.
She said: "I didn't hear an explosion at first . . . I heard an explosion - a big bang - boom - in front of the house".
Another witness said she had seen a "fireball" as the plane hit a building behind her home.
The woman said: "I saw this hit the house right behind my house. It seemed so low that I was ducking, almost. Then there was this enormous fireball. It is utter terror here, everybody's just in shock. It's hard to believe, you don't think it's going to hit this close to home".
Another witness said he saw an engine on the wing blow up seconds before the plane plunged to the ground. "It was flying fine with no problems. It seemed to be on a normal flight path. Then the engine on the right side blew up and it went straight down into a nosedive.
"There were flames on the right hand side. It was very fast. I don't think the pilot had any choice but to go straight down".
He said: "It was very very frightening. I was watching the plane from my office all the way along and it blew up right in front of my eyes".
Residents of Queens were jolted from their beds as the jet crashed near their homes.
People ran outside with fire extinguishers and garden hoses to fight fires, witnesses say.
"The whole house jumped," said John Maroney who added that pieces of plane fell a few blocks from his home. "That's probably what shook us up from our beds."
Two local schools - empty of students for the Veterans Day holiday - were turned into triage centres to prepare for the injured.
Mr Maroney said a jet engine fell onto a nearby Texaco station, sparking a fire.
"We were all out there with fire extinguishers and hoses but we couldn't do much," he said. An unidentified witness told a local television station that neighbourhood residents ran to the burning buildings to try to help.
Witness Jackie Power told reporters: "It was a beautiful morning and all of a sudden we saw this plane and it appears it was taking off.
"On the right side of the plane there was a fire or an explosion and debris fell from the left side and it plummeted - it had no momentum, it just plummeted."
One terrified resident told CNN she was baking when she saw the plane crash behind her house. "Actually it was a huge, loud sound," she said. "And then it blew up into a huge fireball and I jumped out the second floor of my house. It was horrible."
PA