Plane carrying 50 crashes; one known survivor

[Naim 6]

Plane carrying 50 crashes; one known survivor

Sunday, August 27, 2006; Posted: 9:52 a.m. EDT (13:52 GMT)

 

(CNN) -- A Delta commuter flight carrying 50 people crashed Sunday morning near Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, airport and airline officials said. One person is known to have survived.

 

That person is being treated at the University of Kentucky Hospital, according to the hospital spokeswoman.

 

"He is in critical condition," Gail Hairston said, without adding any other details.

 

There were 46 passengers, three crew members and one off-duty crew member on Delta Flight 5191 -- operated by Delta's commuter carrier, Comair, according to Michael Gobb, director of the Blue Grass Airport.

 

The commuter flight was en route from Blue Grass Airport to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown told CNN..

 

The plane crashed a mile from the airport shortly after take-off, the FAA said.

 

The aircraft was a Bombardier Canadian Regional Jet (CRJ)-100, which has a good track record, according to its history on the National Transportation Safety Board's Web site.

 

Flight 5191 was cleared for takeoff at 6:05 a.m. ET, which was the last communication between the pilot and air traffic controllers, FAA officials said.

 

The plane crashed at 6:19 a.m. ET, about a mile west of the airport, FAA officials said.

 

The plane was scheduled to land in Atlanta at 7:18 a.m. ET.

 

It is unclear what caused the crash. There were no reports of bad weather in the Lexington area.

 

"It was dark at the time of the accident, but it was clear," Brown said.

 

A team of National Transportation Safety Board investigators is heading to the crash site to begin an investigation.

[Chan CS 0]

May the victims RIP.....

 

This month also isn't a really good month for aviation... Quite a lot of accidents........

[Andrew Yong 0]

May the victims RIP.....

 

This month also isn't a really good month for aviation... Quite a lot of accidents........

Agree, espeacially Russia aviation within a year, 3 serious accident happen!!!!

[Walter Sim 1]

yeah badmonth!

 

even SQ's few plane diverted due to technical issuses.

 

plus some security flaws. Sums up preety well!

[Gavin Andrew David 6]

What happened from departure which is at 6.05 to 6.14 ?

 

No communication with ATC at all ? Rather strange

[Seng Lim 0]

Apparently the plane took off from wrong runway!

 

EXINGTON, Kentucky (CNN) -- A Comair commuter jet took off from a short runway used by private aircraft rather than a longer one typically used by commercial jets before it crashed Sunday morning, a National Transportation Safety Board official said.

 

Comair Flight 5191 crashed about half a mile past the end of the runway shortly after takeoff Sunday morning, killing 49 of the 50 people on board. The sole survivor, first officer James Polehinke, was in critical condition at a Lexington hospital.

 

The Delta commuter flight had been cleared to take off from the 7,000-foot Runway 22 at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, sources told CNN earlier Sunday. Instead, evidence at the scene indicates the plane took off from Runway 26, which is about half as long, NTSB member Debbie Hersman told reporters Sunday evening.

 

"We're still working on determining what was going on in the cockpit, what information was discussed between air traffic controllers and the pilots," Hersman said. "That's part of our investigation, and we hope to have more information about that later."

 

Hersman would not discuss how or why the plane ended up on the shorter runway. Nor would she say whether the Canadian-built Bombardier CRJ-100 would have been able to successfully take off from a 3,500-foot runway. (Watch results of early NTSB review -- 3:27)

 

But former NTSB Vice Chairman Bob Francis told CNN that the twin-engine jet would have needed about 5,000 feet of runway for a successful takeoff.

 

Hersman said investigators are combing through 32 minutes of cockpit voice recordings and "several hundred" readings from the plane's flight data recorder as they search for the cause of the crash.

 

The plane was carrying 47 passengers and three crew members. One of the passengers was an off-duty crew member sitting in the plane's jump seat, Blue Grass Airport Director Michael Gobb said. (Honeymooners among victims)

Officer burned during rescue

 

Flight 5191 was en route to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Georgia, where it was scheduled to land at 7:18 a.m. ET.

 

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said he believes most people died from fire-related causes "rather than smoke inhalation."

 

First responders extricated Polehinke, according to Blue Grass Airport's Chief of Public Safety Scott Lanter.

 

They "observed movement at the front of the aircraft, and then extricated the first officer from the nose of the airplane," Lanter said.

 

Lexington Police Officer Bryan Jared and two airport officers, John Sallee and James "Pete" Maupin, pulled the first officer from the plane, with Jared burning both of his arms during the rescue, Gobb told The Associated Press.

 

Flight 5191 was cleared for takeoff at 6:05 a.m. ET, which was the last communication between the pilot and air-traffic controllers at the airport, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

 

County Coroner Ginn said much of the aircraft remained intact, despite a heavy fire that "traveled with the plane." The airport's fire department "got there very fast ... and because of that, we're able to keep a lot of the plane intact," he said.

 

The coroner's office has set up a temporary morgue in Frankfort -- about 30 miles west of Lexington -- "in order to expedite the autopsies," Ginn said.

 

He said he is asking family members for dental records to help make identifications.

 

Bornhorst told reporters in Kentucky that his priority was "to assuage the grief of all of the family and friends of the passengers who have been impacted by this great tragedy."

 

"That will be job No. 1 for us, but a very close second job is also to assist and to cooperate with the investigation from the NTSB and from the FAA," he said. (Watch Bornhorst detail the facts of the crash -- 7:30)

 

Comair purchased the CRJ-100 from Bombardier in January 2001 and said its maintenance was up-to-date.

 

That type of plane has a good track record, according to the NTSB Web site.

 

Bornhorst said the flight crew had been "on a legal rest period far beyond what is required," but the specifics of the crew's schedule will be part of the NTSB investigation.

 

The pilot, Capt. Jeffrey Clay, began work with Comair in 1999 and was promoted two years ago to captain, Bornhorst said.

 

Polehinke has worked for Comair since 2002, and Kelly Heyer, a male flight attendant, had been employed with the carrier since 2004, he said.

 

The plane went down before sunrise, scaring residents who initially thought it was bad weather.

 

"I really thought it was a big clap of thunder, so didn't think much about it until I heard all the sirens," one man said.

 

Another man described what he saw from his back door.

 

"Over the hillside, I saw a flash of light and then an explosion, and then just a big plume of smoke come up," he said.

 

Sunday's crash is the deadliest U.S. airline crash since November 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a Queens, New York, neighborhood less than two minutes after the Airbus A300 left the runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

 

All 260 on board Flight 587 were killed, along with five people on the ground, making it the second-deadliest air crash in U.S. history.

[Naim 6]

Apparently the plane took off from wrong runway!

 

EXINGTON, Kentucky (CNN) -- A Comair commuter jet took off from a short runway used by private aircraft rather than a longer one typically used by commercial jets before it crashed Sunday morning, a National Transportation Safety Board official said.

...

 

Oh dear, wrong runway! Been on the CRJ a couple of times. I like the sleek bizjet-like feeling. Anyway here are some graphics from a local site:

 

Lexington/Blue Grass Airport.

 

The shorter runway crossing the longer one.

 

[Naim 6]

More graphics.

 

 

 

[zealich 0]

thanks for that graphics.bad month indeed..perhaps is ghost month for our calendar.

[Min Chun 0]

May them R.I.P

 

Last time there was a bad month for aviation world too.

If mind serves me right, it was our 'ghost month' last year too right?

Or just a few months ago..anyone can recall?

[PC Yuen 0]

Nonsense!! Pls dont include superstitious this unfortunate incident. Its purely human error. Not some ghostly event.

[Tony 1]

May the victims RIP.

 

So, cleared for take-off at 0605, crashed at 0619. Anyone knew the scheduled time of departure for flight 5191?

 

And yes, how come no communication between take-off and crash? No handovers?

[Naim 6]

Nonsense!! Pls dont include superstitious this unfortunate incident. Its purely human error. Not some ghostly event.

 

Human error(s)? Must be a lot of them piled together. See excerpt from http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/n...ws/15377336.htm below:

 

---

The two pilots in Sunday's crash had a combined 11 years of service at Comair, which is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines.

 

Although Comair president Don Bornhorst said the pilots were experienced and had flown the airplane for some time, the flight crew apparently ignored a string of warning signs, according to experts and airline pilots.

 

A routine check of the onboard compass and directional gyroscope would have alerted the Comair pilots that they were set to take off on a 260-degree heading from Runway 26, instead of the assigned 220-degree heading on Runway 22.

 

The longer runway the pilots should have been on runs northeast to southwest, while the shorter runway runs about 10 degrees off a straight east-west heading.

 

"Navigating on the airport surface is a standard part of every takeoff. The runway numbers are painted on the pavement and you have an airport surface diagram in your lap," said William Cotton, a retired United Airlines captain who managed the airline's air traffic division.

 

"It's just not common to think you are on one runway when you actually are on another," Cotton said.

 

In addition to the commercial runway being twice as long as the general aviation runway, the longer runway is 150 feet wide, versus only a 75-foot width for the shorter runway.

 

The wingspan on a CRJ100 is about 70 feet, which might have served as a visual cue to the Comair pilots looking out the cockpit windshield that they were on the wrong runway.

 

"The wingtips would've been sticking out pretty near to the side of what should have appeared to be a very narrow runway," Cotton said.

 

Also, the shorter runway at the Lexington airport is designated for day-time use only because it does not have runway lights. But the Comair pilots, taking off shortly after 6 a.m. in a slight rain, apparently failed to notice the absence of lighting on their pre-dawn flight. The floodlights on the airplane's wings provided the only illumination.

 

"For a flight crew, I find what happened on Sunday to be inexcusable," said a commuter airline pilot who flies frequently to the Blue Grass Airport. "I am sure the investigation will turn up some mitigating circumstances, but the whole reason for having checks and balances is to prevent a tragedy like this."

 

[Pieter C. 5]

A routine check of the onboard compass and directional gyroscope would have alerted the Comair pilots that they were set to take off on a 260-degree heading from Runway 26, instead of the assigned 220-degree heading on Runway 22.

 

That all may R.I.P.

The only survivor seems to be one of the pilots...

Apparently, no x-check on the heading was performed immediately before the take-off roll

 

[Teoh Z Yao 0]

Sad, another accident... Another mistake runway operation...

 

Even simulator pilots exercise professionalism by x-checking the heading to ensure a correct runway... It's sad that a lame human error causes the deaths of so many lives. I remember the AA incident that slipped off the rwy at Little Rock, Arkansas... Human-error it was said... Also... the SQ incident in Taipei... Wrong runway!!

 

May the deceased r.i.p.

Edited August 28, 2006 by Teoh Z Yao

[Pieter C. 5]

October 15, 2006

Barriers from an airport construction project were among several hazards contributing to August's deadly Comair plane crash, the airline said, as it sought help in paying compensation to victims.

 

The fiery pre-dawn crash on August 27 at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, in which investigators said the pilots took off from the wrong runway, killed 49 people. One of the two pilots was the lone survivor of the crash.

 

In a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Kentucky, Comair, which is a unit of Delta Air Lines, cited the Federal Aviation Administration and the owners and operators of the Lexington airport for a variety of problems that may have led up to the crash.

 

Among the contributing factors that were the responsibility of the FAA and the airport were "hazardous, unsafe and confusing" barriers related to a construction project on the airport taxiway, the suit said.

 

It said lighting and signage on the taxiway were "missing or confusing" on the day of the crash, and claimed authorities failed to properly oversee the construction project and apparently failed to alert pilots.

 

The suit also noted only one air traffic controller was on duty at the time of the crash.

 

National Transportation Safety Board investigators, who have yet to announce their findings as to what caused the accident, have said FAA guidelines called for two controllers to be working at the time. The lone controller turned away from the airfield to work on paperwork prior to the plane taking off from the wrong runway.

 

The fatal flight attempted to take off from the shorter of the airport's two runways that was unsuitable for commercial flights, and the plane struck a berm, some trees, and crashed and burned in a field.

 

In a statement, the Lexington Blue Grass Airport said it operated safely. "We are disappointed that Comair has chosen to make ill-founded claims against the Airport Board, its members and employees," the statement said.

 

The suit did not seek monetary damages, but sought a "declaratory judgment" that the FAA and the airport share responsibility for the accident. That would allow Comair or its insurer to seek contributions after it compensates the families, the airline said.

 

Comair also filed an administrative claim against the United States, as overseer of the FAA.

 

"This is a required procedural step and a prerequisite to any claim for monetary damages against the United States based upon the FAA's actions," the airline said in a statement.

 

"We want to ensure prompt compensation for the families and victims, and resolve the appropriate apportionment of financial costs. This must be accomplished through the legal process," Comair president Don Bornhorst said in a statement.

 

The first lawsuit brought by one of the families of the victims was filed in a Kentucky state court a few days after the crash.

 

(Reuters)