Comair flight crashes near Ky. airport

[madokie]

3 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060827/ap_on_re_us/kentucky_crash

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A Comair flight carrying 50 people crashed a mile from Lexington's airport Sunday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said local authorities have indicated there are significant fatalities. A team from the National Transportation Safety Board is en route to the crash scene, she said.

Comair Flight 191, a CRJ-100 regional jet with 47 passengers and three crew members, crashed at 6:07 a.m. shortly after taking off, Bergen said.

Comair is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines based in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Ky.

[Aviation Pro]

1. Should be a CRJ-200, not 100

I have a friend of mine who flies for Comair, I'm trying to get some more information. Weather does not appear to be a factor. It would be foolhardy to speculate on anything at this point and I always recommend that we let the engineers and investigators at NTSB do their jobs.

[PaDem]

4. I have a pilot friend with Comair too..........

if you find the name of the pilots can you post it here?

[Aviation Pro]

7. No, I will not do that....

..it would not be right to post their names, if I do find out, ahead of the official announcement. Let the families have their privacy.

[PaDem]

10. fine, can you send it to my inbox?

I agree, I shouldn't have asked you to post in on a public forum.

[ClintonTyree]

2. Has FOX News tied it to Al Qaeda yet?

I'm sure they've hinted at such, at the very least. :eyes: Must......keep.....fear.....level.....rising......for.....Republicans. :silly:

[Hugin]

12. It's a toss-up...

They have to decide whether to tie it to Lamont before or after al Qaeda.

[ThomWV]

3. That Should Take Our Minds Off Everything Else For About A Week

And then on to the next distraction.

[madokie]

6. have you noticed if they don't have something new to report on

they just keep going back to the tried and true ons. I'm surprised that oj isn't drug out from time to time to fill in for a slow day. after all it did work for quite some time best I can remember

[Cooley Hurd]

5. Flight info from Comair webiste and pic of LEX:

Lexington, KY to Atlanta, GA on Sun, 27 Aug 2006

Delta 5191
Departure: 27 Aug 2006 LEX 6:00am
Arrival: 27 Aug 2006 ATL 7:18am
Equipment: Canadair Regional Jet
Flight time: 1:18

Lexington Bluegrass Airport - LEX:

[alfredo]

20. Here's what happened. The plane left the terminal

heading to the right as in the image. He was to take the second left, but he took the first left. The runway he needed was over 7,000 ft , the one he took was 3,500. He had a full load of passengers and gas. The runway he took off from has a rise at the end.

The plane could not clear the trees beyond the strip. You can see the strip that runs parallel to Versailles road. the plane did not come apart, but landed pretty much intact. What probably killed everyone was the fire.


One survivor found. He's a pilot or co pilot. He's in critical condition.

BTW, that is Keeneland race track and at the top right is a piece of Calumet farm.

[Syncronaut Seven]

39. One hell of a pilot error.

Unfamiliarity with the airport? How soon to toxicology reports, or will that be announced as part of the final report?

[Aviation Pro]

41. Toxicology will probably come back negative....

...also, after a severe trauma, false indications of alcohol do show up. Finally, selecting the wrong runway or even landing at the wrong airport is not unheard of. Pilots are human beings and prone to error which is why most accidents are a result of human error (approximately 80%).

[alfredo]

43. Many of the bodies were burnt to a crisp.

The fire was very hot.

[alfredo]

42. Yeah, there were two intersections, both with jogs to the left

he could have been confused, but he took the day only runway, not the lit runway. We will have to wait for the NTSB to give us the final word.

[malaise]

8. Damn

Imagine the last moments of these poor victims' lives.
Still CNN really asks dumb questions.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. 24-hour cable news, they have to fill air time, so they blather.

It will be awhile before the cause is known, but they have to speculate (ignorantly) so they have something to say. Oddly, CNN hasn't mentioned Terra yet, and I'm not about to turn to Pox News, but I bet they're on it.

[malaise]

18. They are certainly reaching

when Gobb mentioned fire, the dumb CNN peeps wanted to know if it was in air fire and he said no there was fire on impact. Back to the weather channel.

[onenote]

30. sort of like the internet

lots of speculation, even though there is little information

[WinkyDink]

45. Too bad we don't get paid, huh?

[Aviation Pro]

14. Eyewitness report, which are notoriously innaccurate,

...said that there was a large boom followed by a fire. The plane crashed one mile from the departure end of the runway. This would initially indicate that the aircraft was in the second segment of its climb and the pilots would be engaging the "speed, heading and half-bank" functions of the Master Control Panel, arming the autopilot and retracting the flaps. The speed at the time would be V2+20 (safety speed based on weight plus 20 knots). If I was to speculate anything, I would say that this may be a mechanical issue, but once again, let's let the good folks at NTSB do their jobs. The Go-Team from DC is probably on the ground now.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. An engine failure at or above V2 should be manageable.

Could be any number of things, even some sort of failure of the FMS. They'll figure it out. Meanwhile, CNN babbles, filling air time.

[Aviation Pro]

17. I agree, we practice V1 cuts all the time.....

...there may have been something catastrophic at the time, but that's why I always wait.

[cherokeeprogressive]

38. Cleared for takeoff on Runway 22 but used 26.

7000 ft. vs 3500.

Inexcusable that a cockpit crew could miss their intended takeoff direction by 40 degrees and not notice.

I'd like to know what the toxicology report says about what each of them had to drink or smoke last night.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

44. Fatigue will be a big issue here.

According to the TV, the pilots would have had only about 5 hours of rest time since arriving at LEX last night, which would include travel to and from their hotel -- meaning they got maybe 4 hours of actual sleep. Fatigue can be just as debilitating as drugs and alcohol. There are FAA crew rest requirements, but it's still possible to be "legal" without getting enough sleep. ALPA has been complaining about this for years.

I don't know how they both could have missed the fact they were taking off on the wrong runway (normally you check your HSI or ADI or NAV display or whatever the CRJ has) when you are cleared for takeoff, and when you get takeoff clearance you turn on all your lights. With the lights on would they have been able to see how short the runway was? Were they in a hurry, too, or distracted? Lots of possibilities; drugs or alcohol the least likely.

If the first officer recovers, I don't know how he will be able to handle this. It will be extremely tough to live with. Very sad for everyone.

[cherokeeprogressive]

46. Agreed.

The info I have says emergency services were notified at 6:07. Civil Twilight wasn't until 6:36. That's just the kind of "tweener" that could have contributed. I doubt their lights could have shown them the other end of the runway at that time.

Ground radar would have alerted the tower that the a/c was on the wrong runway, no?

In a hurry? I'm not sure. They had plenty of connectors to worry about at Hartsfield. That could have been a factor.

As for what the FO remembers, my guess is that he won't even remember pushing back. Trauma has a strange way of wiping out your most recent experiences, as has been shown with auto crashes and a host of other accidental injuries. For his sake, I hope this is the case.

Hundreds, if not thousands of people though are at this moment feeling a horrible sense of loss and when they get over the inititial grief, they'll be angry. We'll start talking about issues like fatigue, inexperience, or some other external influence like lack of ground radar at commercial airports. That will lead to a discussion of airline deregulation. And in the end, as it should be, this accident will be laid at the foot of Ronnie RayGun's grave.

Sad.

[Aviation Pro]

47. This was a standup overnight.....

...and yes fatigue will be a big part of the cause.

[Dinger]

9. A Plane Crash In An Election Season Makes Me Nervous

I hope this bad feeling goes away.

[kilgore65]

40. the Wellstone-ization of Amerikkka....

[Roland99]

11. Oh damn! Wonder if it was weather-related?

Not necessarily severe weather rolling through at the time but there was rain and possibly some high winds.

[Aviation Pro]

16. No...

...here are the routine meteorological observations at the time of the crash....

KLEX 271154Z 22006KT 6SM HZ OVC055 23/20 A3004 RMK AO2 SLP161 60001 70001 T02330200 10250 20233 53012
KLEX 271054Z 22008KT 8SM FEW047 BKN060 OVC090 23/20 A3002 RMK AO2 RAB12E51 SLP154 P0001 T02330200
KLEX 270954Z 20007KT 8SM FEW090 SCT120 24/19 A3000 RMK AO2 SLP147 T02390194
KLEX 270854Z 19008KT 8SM FEW060 BKN090 24/19 A3000 RMK AO2 SLP148 T02390194 53001
KLEX 270754Z 19009KT 7SM SCT065 SCT080 24/19 A3000 RMK AO2 SLP146 T02440194
KLEX 270654Z 19006KT 8SM BKN120 24/20 A3000 RMK AO2 SLP148 T02440200

The key reports are the 1054Z (0654 EDT) and 0954Z (0554 EDT) reports. They show no convective activity, but continuous rain from stratus layer clouds at 6000 and 9000 feet AGL (above ground level). The rain commenced at 12 minutes past the 0600 EDT hour so it had no effect on the flight.

The current radar capture looks like this:



and the activity to the NE of Lexington was the low-level precipitation from the time of the accident.

[malaise]

21. They're saying the aircraft took off

from the wrong runway. Fugg.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

26. Where did you hear that? I haven't heard that yet - not on CNN?

[malaise]

27. MSNBC

and they're still saying that.

[malaise]

35. Breaking on MSNBC

as confirmed. They took off on the wrong runway and only one airtraffic controller was in the tower.
"Sources tell NBC News: Pilot took off on wrong runway".

Damn this is a tragedy.

Earlier link
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14540419/

<snip>
If the plane was on the wrong runway, it could have been shorter than the pilot expected. The main runway at Lexington’s airport is 7,000 feet long, while a daytime-only, unlit general aviation runway is about 3,500 feet.

Chief Scott Lanter of the airport fire department said the crash was about a mile off the end of the shorter runway.

“We don’t know which runway they were using,” he said.

[wakeme2008]

19. OT a little Lexington is one of the prettiest airports to land at

I worked at the then IBM Lexington for a period in the 90s and flew into there a lot. As you are lowering down for landing, you go across large areas of KY blue grass horse farms with their white fences. Very pretty.

[JCMach1]

22. Prayers and karma for the victims... this scared the willies out of me

at first because my wife and daughters are in transit back to UAE at the moment. They connected out of Cincinatti, so I read the story very carefully... :(

[blueknight]

23. i have flown out of this airport MANY times,

and have flown this very flight several times on the exact same type plane. they are suggesting pilot error. my heart goes out to these families

[Aviation Pro]

24. Press conference on CNN right now....

...too high a bandwidth for my windup computer. Got the names of the pilots from a friend.

http://www.cnn.com

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. Not a lot of information.

The spokesman did give the names of the crew, not much else -- to be expected. The guy looks pretty shaken up.

[Aviation Pro]

32. This is to be expected....

...any accident of this magnitude shakes up the entire community. Considering that the percentage of certificated pilots that are qualified to fly a transport category airplane is about .002% of the general population chances are high that a large percentage of those flying know these pilots.

[PaDem]

28. The names of the crew has apparently been released, any idea where I could

find that info?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

29. The Comair spokesman announced them on TV,

so the names should come up on CNN's website before long.

[Aviation Pro]

31. I don't know...

...I think that as the story develops the names will be published on the news sites.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

34. Here:

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/9743954/detail.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

33. Names of crewmembers are in this article:

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/9743954/detail.html

Added: Just heard the first officer is the sole survivor.

[dogday]

36. You don't hear about anyone surviving

these kinds of accidents... He must be asking himself why me? I am saddened at the loss of life... It is so sad when these types of tragedies occur..

[Rainscents]

37. I just flew ed on Com-air few days ago..

From PA to Cinn on connecting flight. My heart, goes out to all family member.

[alfredo]

48. Another plane has gone down in Kentucky

It happened in Breathitt County. No word on what type of plane or how many passengers.