US News
Runway error suspected in Kentucky crash that killed 49
By DPA
Aug 28, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - Accident investigators were studying Monday whether the apparent mistaken use of a short runway contributed to the deadly crash of a commuter jet shortly after takeoff from an airport in Lexington, Kentucky.

The lone survivor of the early Sunday wreck, co-pilot James M Polehinke, 44, was reported hospitalized in critical condition. The other two crew members and all 47 passengers died in the fiery wreckage of Comair Flight 5191, which was bound for Atlanta, Georgia.

National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Herzman said that preliminary evidence - including the position of the wreckage and a first examination of the intact 'black-box' recorders - confirmed witness accounts that the 50-seat jet attempted takeoff from the shorter of Blue Grass Airport's two runways.

The 1,050-metre runway is not meant for commercial aviation and used only by private planes. It may have been too short for the ill- fated CRJ100, manufactured in 2001 by Canadian-based Bombardier Aerospace's Canadair Regional Jet subsidiary.

The airport's main runway is 2,100 metres long.

The pilot had flown for seven years for Comair, said Don Bornhorst, president of the Delta Airlines commuter subsidiary.

The burning wreckage was about 1 kilometre straight from the end of the shorter runway in woods on a farm, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

The pilot 'obviously ... used the wrong runway,' farm owner Nick Bentley told the newspaper. 'He just got disoriented for whatever reason.'

Bornhorst said that the crash was 'emotionally devastating' for all concerned. He said that the plane underwent a maintenance check on Saturday.

Herzman said that a nine-member team from the NTSB, which investigates all aviation accidents, arrived in Lexington from Washington within six hours of the accident, and their number was due to more than double by Monday morning.

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were both quickly recovered from the wreckage and returned to a lab in Washington for examination, she said.

Early results showed that both recorders were intact despite the impact of the fully fuelled aircraft and the blaze that followed. The first checks showed that the expected information about the final minutes of flight 5191 was preserved, including conversations with the air-traffic tower before takeoff and readings from the instruments and cockpit controls.

She refused to discuss the cause of the mishap but said that the apparent mistaken runway selection would be 'part of our investigation.'

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that among the dead were a Japanese couple, a British owner of a chain of roller-skating rinks, a local newlywed couple and a horse breeder from Kentucky's world- famous thoroughbred industry.