Comair Plane Took Off From Wrong Runway
Comair Plane Took Off From Wrong Runway, NTSB Says; Ky. Crash Killed 49 Out of 50 on Board
By JEFFREY McMURRAY
The Associated Press

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A commuter jet mistakenly trying to take off on a runway that was too short crashed into a field Sunday and burst into flames, killing 49 people and leaving the lone survivor a co-pilot in critical condition, federal investigators said.

Preliminary flight data from Comair Flight 5191's black box recorders and the damage at the scene indicate the plane, a CRJ-100 regional jet, took off from the shortest runway at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said.

The 3,500-foot-long strip, unlit and barely half the length of the airport's main runway, is not intended for commercial flights. The twin-engine CRJ-100 would have needed 5,000 feet to fully get off the ground, aviation experts said.

It wasn't immediately clear how the plane ended up on the shorter runway in the predawn darkness. There was a light rain Sunday, and the strip veers off at a V from the main runway, which had just been repaved last week.

"We will be looking into performance data, we will be looking at the weight of the aircraft, we will be looking at speeds, we will pull all that information off," Hersman said.

The Atlanta-bound plane plowed through a perimeter fence and crashed in a field less than mile from the end of that runway at about 6:07 a.m. Aerial images of the crash site in the rolling hills of Kentucky's horse country showed trees damaged at the end of the short runway and the nose of the plane almost parallel to the small strip.

When rescuers reached it, the plane was largely intact but in flames. A police officer burned his arms dragging the only survivor from the cracked cockpit.

The flames kept rescuers from reaching anyone else aboard a newlywed couple starting their honeymoon, a Florida man who had caught an early flight home to be with his children and a University of Kentucky official among them.

"They were taking off, so I'm sure they had a lot of fuel on board," Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said. "Most of the injuries are going to be due to fire-related deaths."

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency had no indication that terrorism was involved in any way in what was the country's worst domestic plane crash in five years.

It's rare for a plane to get on the wrong runway, but "sometimes with the intersecting runways, pilots go down the wrong one," said Saint Louis University aerospace professor emeritus Paul Czysz.

The worst such crash came on Oct. 31, 2000, when a Los Angeles-bound Singapore Airlines jumbo jet mistakenly went down a runway at Taiwan's Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport that had been closed for repairs because of a recent typhoon. The resulting collision with construction equipment killed 83 people on board.

Comair President Don Bornhorst said maintenance for the plane that crashed Sunday was up to date and its three-member flight crew was experienced and had been flying that airplane for some time.

"We are absolutely, totally committed to doing everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident," Bornhorst said. "One of the most damaging things that can happen to an investigation of this magnitude is for speculation or for us to guess at what may be happening."

Most of the passengers aboard the flight had planned to connect to other flights in Atlanta and did not have family waiting for them, said the Rev. Harold Boyce, a volunteer chaplain at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

One woman was there expecting her sister. The two had planned to fly together to catch an Alaskan cruise, Boyce said.

"Naturally, she was very sad," Boyce said. "She was handling it. She was in tears."

The only survivor of the crash was identified as first officer James M. Polehinke, who was in critical condition after surgery at the University of Kentucky hospital.

The other crew members were Capt. Jeffrey Clay, who was hired by Erlanger, Ky.-based Comair in 1999, and flight attendant Kelly Heyer, hired in 2004. Polehinke has been with Comair since 2002.

The plane had undergone routine maintenance as recently as Saturday and had 14,500 flight hours, "consistent with aircraft of that age," Bornhorst said.

Investigators from the FAA and NTSB were at the scene, and Bornhorst said the airline was working to contact relatives of the passengers.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush, who is spending a long weekend at his family's summer home on the Maine coast, was being briefed on the crash.

"The president was deeply saddened by the news of the plane crash in Kentucky today," she said. "His sympathies are with the many families of the victims of this tragedy."

Among those killed were a newlywed couple starting their honeymoon. Jon Hooker, a former minor-league baseball player, had just married Scarlett Parlsey the night before the crash in a fairy tale wedding ceremony complete with a horse-drawn carriage and 300 friends.

"It's so tragic because he was so happy last night," said Keith Madison, who coached Hooker's baseball team at the University of Kentucky and attended the wedding. "It's just an incredible turn of events. It's really painful."

The crash marks the end of what has been called the "safest period in aviation history" in the United States. There has not been a major crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

Associated Press Writer Leslie Miller in Washington and Harry Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

Total buzzkill

Its not buzzkill, I am just putting it on here, just in case someone hadn't heard about it, since I am a pilot/attorney, I prefer to keep on my tabs on what is going on at airports.

Thanks for posting it. I had heard about the crash but not the update about the runway. Any crash is a tragedy and one life lost is one too many.

It's a buzzkill to me....... I was actually in a good mood yesterday until I saw the news....... It always hurts when another fellow aviator takes that final flight south.... It's even worse when he takes others with him......

Unfortunately, it's an easy mistake to make.......

Yeah with those giant numbers on the runway I could see that happening often.

Obviously, you've never operated in an airline environment.......... There is a lot going on, and you do the same thing numerous times a day and they were only human. Sometimes you think you see what you expect to see, and it isn't there......

Having been to several airports with layouts similar to this one, I can say with no hesitation that it would be easy to do........... The depature end of 17/12R in HOU comes to mind, and the same thing has happened there a bunch of times, only there was enough runway to get airborne and clear the hangars on the other end.

Except for that part about it being at night and the numbers aren't visible at that time. This investigation is going to go far deeper than what happened; the why and how are going to turn up many things. Unless you have airline piloting experience or have flown out of LEX like I have, you probably don't have a clue about the whys and hows involved in this crash.

Apparently some changes were made to the taxi route.

Route altered before crash
BY JEFFREY MCMURRAY | ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- The taxiway at Lexington's airport was altered during a repaving project just a week before a Comair jet tried to take off on the wrong runway and crashed, killing 49 people, the airport's director said Monday.

Federal investigators said they were looking at such things as lights, markings and signs that may have confused the pilots, but at a midday briefing they did not specifically mention the repaving project.

Both the old and new taxiway routes cross over the short runway where Flight 5191 tried to take off before crashing into a grassy field and bursting into flame, Airport Executive Director Michael Gobb told The Associated Press.


The repaving was finished one week before the crash, Gobb said.

"It's slightly different than it used to be," said Charlie Monette, president of Aero-Tech flight school at the airport. "Could there have been some confusion associated with that? That's certainly a possibility."

It was unclear whether the Comair pilots had been to the airport since the changes to the taxi route.

Lowell Wiley, a flight instructor who flies almost every day out Lexington, said in an interview that he was confused by the redirected taxi route when he was with a student Friday taking off from the main runway.

"When we taxied out, we did not expect to see a barrier strung across the old taxiway," Wiley said. "It was a total surprise."

Investigators planned to use a high truck to simulate the pilots' view of the runways and taxiways in their efforts to determine why the jet turned onto a shorter runway before dawn Sunday. The lone survivor was a critically injured co-pilot who was pulled from the cracked cockpit.

Authorities also planned to prepare a full report on the pilots, including what they did on and off duty for several days before the crash, which was the worst U.S. plane disaster since 2001.

All discussions between the plane and the control tower were about a takeoff from the main strip, Runway 22, which is 7,000 feet long, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman.

Somehow, the commuter jet ended up on Runway 26 instead - a cracked surface about 3,500 feet long that forms an X with the main runway and is meant only for small planes. Aviation experts say the CRJ-100 would have needed 5,000 feet to get airborne.

According to the NTSB database, there have been four accidents caused by pilots taking off on the wrong runway worldwide since 1982.

"It's not common," Bill Waldock, aviation safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona. "It's right up there with lightning strikes."

Air traffic controllers are not responsible for making sure pilots are on the right runway, said John Nance, a pilot and aviation analyst.

"You clear him for takeoff and that's the end of it," Nance said. "It's not the duty of the controller to baby-sit every flight. It would have been great if he or she had, but they have other duties up there."

According to a NASA database, a twin-engine jet taxied to the wrong runway at Lexington in November 1993 and the tower called to tell them about their mistake. The pilot reported that the confusing runway intersection contributed to the incident.

The NTSB will re-create the pilots' last 72 hours, focusing on fatigue and stress issues, Waldock said. Agents will review how many flights the pilots made, how much rest they had, any medication they took and even whether they had coffee that morning.

Hersman said the NTSB has interviewed the lone controller on duty at the time, reviewed records and transcribed the data and voice recorders. She said information retrieved from the cockpit voice recorder indicates that the preflight preparations had been "consistent with normal operations."

Yeah A4HawkPilot... Since you've "obviously" never operated in an airline environment or had airline piloting experience or visited that devilish LEX you can't have a clue about any of this. Nothin' for you to do but sit quietly and wait until the real pilots let you in on their findings.

Sounds about right.......

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.

Well let's not forget other times when aircraft have taken off the wrong runway, or even the taxiway. ANC comes to mind. The only difference is the crew was lucky enough to get away with their mistake. LEX in particular has a different layout at the north end than most airports, and when you throw in night conditions, construction in progress, and a hump on 4/22 that makes it appear to be about 3,500 feet long from the departure end, it is easy to see where the term "chain of events" comes from. Not to mention other minor factors such as the tower operating with less than the specified number of controllers, the short taxi time with 1st flight items to run, etc. Of course, the crew error was the final contributing factor to this accident and I'm not taking the responsibility off their shoulders, but it's possible that if just one of the minor contributing factors not happened, this entire accident may have been avoided. An armchair quarterback will sit back and talk about how he could never make such a basic mistake, while true professionals will take the time to understand exactly how the events took place, and try to learn as much as they can from it. Those who say "it could never happen to me" are the ones to watch out for.

Lessee... 0600 departure, 0500 showtime, 0400 wakeup (pretty early... at best an unusual rest cycle)... one controller working (attention divided by working both ground and local frequencies? Early takeoff clearance given due to light traffic?), short taxi route (divided attention between checklist and ATC?), first flight of the day checklist (not much time to get it done), short distance between the two runway thresholds, takeoff clearance acknowledged by "roger" ("Cleared for takeoff 22" might have caught the Captain's attention)... sounds like a prime example of an accident chain to me...

A very sad day. May God bless them and their families.

Here's an update:

Fatal mix for jet: wrong turn and a turned back
Federal aviation officials acknowledged that an air-traffic controller left his post before a commuter jet crashed, killing 49 people.
BY WANDA J. DeMARZO
[email protected]

* Video | Raw Video- Comair Crash Site
The sole air-traffic controller on duty turned his back to do a ''traffic count'' as Comair Flight 5191 veered down the wrong runway Sunday in Lexington, Ky., then crashed after takeoff, leaving only one survivor -- a first officer from Broward County.

Federal Aviation Administration guidelines call for two controllers in the tower, but officials at Blue Grass Airport scheduled only one to work the shift that morning, the FAA said Tuesday.

In an interview with The Miami Herald, the mother of First Officer James Polehinke questioned why the controllers failed to notice that the plane was on the wrong runway.

''That runway had no lights. And where was the guy in the tower who should have told him he was on the wrong runway?'' said Polehinke's mother, Honey Jackson of Sunny Isles Beach.

A National Transportation Safety Board member confirmed that the flight crew received no communication from the control tower as the commuter jet headed down Runway 26 at the Lexington airport in predawn darkness.

The aircraft was supposed to take off from Runway 22, which is 7,000 feet long, but instead made a wrong turn and took off from a shorter runway used for smaller aircraft, investigators said.

Federal aviation officials said the air-traffic controller turned his back to tally the number of flights in and out of the airport, and the next thing he heard was an explosion.

FAA guidelines call for two controllers -- one to handle administrative functions and one to monitor radar. Since the crash, a second controller has been assigned for radar coverage, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.

Investigators are examining other factors, including runway and taxi markings and whether runway lights or a repaving project a week earlier could have played a role.

The NTSB also corrected the perception it gave earlier that Polehinke -- who was flying the plane when it crashed -- was also at the controls when it headed down the wrong runway. It was the aircraft's captain, Jeffrey Clay, who taxied the plane onto the runway. He then turned over the controls to Polehinke for takeoff, the investigator said.

The plane hit a fence and trees and crashed in a nearby field. Clay, 35, was killed, along with another crew member and 47 passengers. Polehinke was pulled from the wreckage.

Jackson returned to her son's Margate home Tuesday to care for his dogs, and planned to return to Kentucky as soon as the tropical storm lets up.

She said her son remains near death.

''He is in a coma, and every bone in his body is broken,'' Jackson said.

Polehinke's wife, Ida, and other family members are holding a vigil at the Kentucky hospital where he is on life support. Because he is in a coma, he has not been able to tell anyone what happened, his mother said.

''We all talk to him, and I know he can hear us. I feel him squeeze my hand,'' Jackson said. ``Being a pilot was his first love, his dream. He is a dedicated pilot and no one knows the truth but him and he can't tell us.''

Polehinke has experience at small airports. From 1997 to 2002, he flew short-range, twin-engine planes for Florida-based Gulfstream International Airlines. He flew at small airports in Florida and the Bahamas, starting as a first officer and getting promoted to captain in 2000.

Gulfstream director of operations Tom Herfort, a pilot for the company at the same time Polehinke was flying, said Polehinke was a solid pilot.

Polehinke was hired at Comair in 2002 and had more than 4,000 hours of flight time with the company, NTSB officials said.

'When my son sits up and says, `Hi, Mom,' then he will talk to everyone about what happened,'' Jackson said.

The Associated Press and The Lexington Herald-Leader contributed to this report.

I wonder if the FAA administrator will take any heat after trying to save a few $$$$ and wreaking havoc in the controller ranks for the last few years.......

FlyI bus driver,

What's Psycho Sandy up to these days?

I certainly would think that it would bring some heat that way.........

I certainly hope so........ At the very least, she's made an already ineffeicient system worse. There is a lot of fat that can be trimmed in the federal government, without compromising safety. Why they chose one of the most safety sensitive areas to do so is beyond me.

Here's something else that is wrong- Read the bold towards the bottom----


from CNN:

LEXINGTON, Kentucky (CNN) -- As Comair Flight 5191 began rolling down the wrong runway, the lone air traffic controller on duty at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport was busy with paperwork. And the 47 passengers onboard were unaware that the flight crew had started that Sunday morning by mistakenly getting onto another plane.

Seconds later, the commuter jet crashed, killing everyone onboard except the co-pilot, who remains in critical condition at a Lexington hospital.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday acknowledged that only one controller was in the tower, in violation of the agency's policy, when the Comair jet crashed. (Watch new findings emerging about crash -- 2:28)

The revelation came after CNN obtained a November 2005 FAA memorandum spelling out staffing levels at the airport. The memo says two controllers are needed -- one to monitor air traffic on radar and another to perform other tower functions, such as communicating with taxiing aircraft. (Text of the memo -- PDF)

When two controllers are not available, the memo says, the radar monitoring function should be handed off to the FAA center in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The FAA told CNN that the lone controller at Blue Grass was performing both functions Sunday in violation of the policy.

The controller's last look at the Comair CRJ-100 occurred when it was on the taxiway, according to National Transportation Safety Board investigators.

"He had cleared the aircraft for takeoff, and he turned his back and performed administrative duties in the tower," said Debbie Hersman, the NTSB member in charge of the investigation. (Watch what pilots may have seen -- 2:09)

She said the controller cleared Flight 5191 to take off on Runway 22, the 7,000-foot lighted runway used by commercial jets.

Instead, the crew tried to take off on the unlit Runway 26, which was about half as long. (Airport layout)

The controller told the NTSB he had an unobstructed view of both runways, Hersman said, but because he was not looking in that direction, he was unaware of a problem until he heard the crash.

Air traffic controllers are not responsible for making sure pilots are on the right runway, John Nance, a pilot and aviation analyst, told The Associated Press. "You clear him for takeoff and that's the end of it," Nance said, according to the AP.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Tuesday that in 1993 a plane mistakenly lined up on Runway 26 instead of Runway 22, but the tower noticed the error in time.

Turning onto the wrong runway was not the only mistake the crew made Sunday, according to the NTSB. When they arrived at the airport at 5:15 a.m., the captain and first officer boarded the wrong plane and turned on the power before a ramp worker pointed out their mistake. (Watch the NTSB describe the latest findings -- 7:27)

Hersman said it was the flight's captain, Jeffrey Clay, who taxied the aircraft into position at the start of the wrong runway. Clay then turned over the controls to the co-pilot, James Polehinke, who was flying the plane when it crashed. Hersman said that was standard procedure since only the captain can reach the tiller used to steer the plane while it's on the ground.

Hersman said both crew members were familiar with the Lexington airport but that neither had been to the airport since a repaving project a week earlier altered the taxiway route.

She said investigators will continue to gather information on how the pilot and co-pilot spent the 72 hours before the flight. She said toxicology testing for alcohol and drugs is routine.
Staffing boosted after crash

Andrew Cantwell, regional vice president of the controller's union, said he could not say with certainty whether additional staffing would have prevented the crash, but a second person would have allowed the controller to focus on operations.

In a statement Tuesday, the FAA suggested that a second controller would not have prevented the accident.

"Had there been a second controller present on Sunday, that controller would have been responsible for separating airborne traffic with radar, not aircraft on the airport's runways," the statement said.

The FAA this week increased overnight staffing at Lexington as well as at airports in Duluth, Minnesota, and Savannah, Georgia, Cantwell said.

Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said there has been a net loss of 1,081 controllers in the last three years, due largely to a wave of retirements, the AP reported.

Tire marks indicate the plane's wheels went into grass beyond the end of the runway. It became airborne after hitting an earthen berm, clipped a perimeter fence and struck a stand of trees before hitting the ground, said Hersman. (Watch a tour of the crash site -- 1:42)

A longtime pilot familiar with Blue Grass Airport told the Lexington newspaper that the airport is confusing and getting onto the wrong runway is easier than it sounds.

Russ Whitney told the paper that Runway 22, the one Flight 5191 should have been on, has a hump in the middle, so pilots cannot see the whole thing as they begin takeoff. Runway 22 and the much shorter Runway 26 can appear to be the same length, he said, according to the newspaper.

On Wednesday, victims' families were scheduled to tour the crash site before a memorial service, the AP reported.

CNN's Mike Ahlers and David Mattingly contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

That happens all of the time. You walk onto a ramp in the morning with several planes parked and no release officially telling you which airplane you're using, so you go on what the gate agent told you. Release comes out, turns out you're in the wrong plane, so you grab your stuff and go to the correct one. It has happened to me several times in the last year.

But how could that happen, with different tail numbers on them? Don't those guys know their own plane?

This really IS an easy mistake....... especially on an originator....... How many RJs does Comair have? A few hundred?

I think it's around 168 right now, of which 20 or so are 70 seaters. Lexington, Portland, Raleigh, and LaGarbage are some examples of one gate leading to multiple aircraft on the ramp. In the morning they are all parked there and the gate usually doesn't have the release yet, so they get word from Ops on which aircraft we're supposed to take. Most of the time they are right but sometimes the paperwork comes out with a different tail number. This is just another example on how the media will report on some minor issue as if it has uncovered some major system-wide flaw.

No kidding....... I've also had them change tail numbers on me AFTER I preflighted the one originally assigned. Nothing like sitting there, wondering where the rest of the crew is 20 minutes beofre push! [X(]


How long have you been over there? I fly with a few ex Comair guys.........

Don't get me started on the media. If they are as inaccurate about the things I know nothing about as they are about aviation related things, then it is all BS. They rarely get it right.

BTW, I got hired at Comair in 1988. I was at Bar Harbor, flying 99s and 1900s out of Naples, and Comair wanted to send me to CVG to fly Bandits for the same money, so I passed and got furloughed 2 months later........

I've been here since last May, and it's pretty much been a downhill slide since last September. Bankrupty in September, furlough in February, paycuts voted in (more like forced at gunpoint), FA labor issues, suicide of a Captain recently, the latest RFP for much of our flying, and now the LEX accident. Just two days before the accident, I updated my logbook and started sending out resumes. I enjoy flying but the stress of all that has been going on here has started to get to my health, and it just isn't worth it for the money I make. Sadly, there are not many jobs out there that pay better than my meager salary but I'm willing to give up a little pay for a more stable future, or at least better working conditions.

I hear you....... It's definitely not a career for the weak of heart!

What kind of time do you have?