No sense ripping on A4 since everyone else already has.. eh to hell with it..

A4HawkPilot

As an airline pilot that has flown into LEX several times (though it's been a while), I will be the first to say the pilots made a mistake (that being they didn't check to make sure they were heading down the correct runway.. their heading wouldn't have jived with what it should have been.. roughly 220). That being said, I have a feeling there were several links to this chain:

Complacency (they've been there a lot)
New taxiway layout that didn't match their jepp plates.. was just finished
dark
early
tired
quick taxi
tower didn't observe the t/o (could have stopped it.. it's happened before at LEX.. about 13 years ago a DAL MD88 did the same damn thing, cept the tower caught it and told them to abort).

If you really are a pilot, I am SURE you've never made a mistake. Since you're alive to regale us with your great aviation insight, I assume that you've just been lucky enough to catch it yourself or had someone else save your rear end.
A pilot that doesn't make a mistake is one that doesn't fly, period. These guys had the stars line up at the wrong time and paid for it with a lot of lives.

But hey what do I know.. I just do this for a living...


FWIW, I have heard that the runway 26 markings would have been on the right side of the a/c with the new taxi route, so they wouldn't have seen it.


I eagerly await the results from the NTSB. Hopefully I can learn from their mistakes.


EDITED TO ADD: To all the Comair drivers that post on here (and I believe there are a few), my condolences from a former Blueridger based out of CVG flying the Dorniers. Was great to share CVG with y'all for a short while.