LEXINGTON, Ky., Aug. 27 -- A Comair flight carrying 50 people crashed a mile from the airport here early Sunday morning shortly after takeoff. Only one person survived -- a crew member -- and is in critical condition, airport and airline officials said.
Comair Flight 5191, with 46 passengers and three crew members and one off-duty crew member, crashed shortly after 6 a.m. after taking off for Atlanta, said Michael Gobb, executive director of the Lexington Blue Grass Airport. Gobb and Comair President Don Bornhorst said the sole survivor was the first officer, or co-pilot.
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Plane Crashes Near Ky. Airport A Comair flight carrying 50 people crashed a mile from Lexington, Ky.'s airport shortly after takeoff. |
The National Transportation Safety Board, whose investigators had arrived at the scene by midday, said Sunday evening that the plane took off from the wrong runway, Runway 26, the shorter of the airport's two runways, based on a preliminary review of the flight data recorder and the inspection of marks that investigators found on the ground at the end of the runway. The plane also crashed through a perimeter fence, said board member Deborah A.P. Hersman.
"They are indentations in the ground, there may be marks, areas that are disturbed," Hersman said. "Our team has been on the scene and seen some information that this aircraft came off Runway 26."
Hersman discussed few other specifics of the crash. She indicated that the pilots were supposed to take off from Runway 22, saying that the only "information we have indicates that there was only references to Runway 22." She declined to elaborate on that statement.
Airport and rescue officials said the wreckage was found in field about a mile from the end of Runway 8-26, a small daytime use-only runway designed to be used by small private aircraft. Most commercial jets use the airport's longer runway, which runs perpendicular to the smaller one.
Gobb said he could not confirm which runway the Comair crew used. "There are a lot of ways that aircraft could have ended up where it did," Gobb said. "Part of the investigation will establish which runway they used."
At a news briefing Sunday afternoon, Bornhorst declined to speculate on the cause of the accident, saying that he would not discuss anything "that might impact on the investigation." .
If the crew did use the shorter runway, aviation experts said that could have been a clear sign of what went wrong. "I'm questioning whether they could have gotten airborne" on a 3,400-foot runway, said safety expert John Cox, a pilot and former head of the Air Line Pilots Association. He said he "would expect you want something in the 4,000 to 5,000-foot range to get the plane airborne. You don't have it on that runway."
Another expert, former NTSB investigator Gregg Feith, said data from the black boxes and the airport radar should be able to easily determine which runway the aircraft departed from. "If you've got good data, you will be able to get at why the airplane ended up where it did," Feith said.
Safety experts said investigators are likely to consider other possible causes of the crash, including whether the plane was overweight; the crew's flight schedule and whether they received adequate rest time; maintenance issues of the aircraft and weather, among other factors.
NTSB chairman Mark Rosenker said his agency would begin to analyze the contents of both black boxes Sunday night or Monday morning in Washington. "We have a time tested process that is methodical and extremely effective," Rosenker said. "This is a horrible, horrible tragedy."
Dozens of firetrucks and police cars littered the roads near the Lexington airport at the end of the runway and near the crash, which appeared to be in a grassy field on a private farm a short distance away. Police blocked off part of one road with orange cones and were bringing in large flood lights, perhaps to aid the search and recovery of bodies from the crash.
Authorities sequestered family members of the crash victims at a hotel about six miles from the airport.
Some aviation officials consider the last 4 61/27 years to have been the safest period in U.S. aviation history. There has not been a major crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plummeted into a Queens, N.Y., neighborhood, killing 265 people, including five on the ground.
Last December, a seaplane, a Grumman G-73 Turbo Mallard, operated by Chalk's Ocean Airways crashed off Miami Beach, killing 18 passengers and two crew members. In 2003, an Air Midwest commuter plane crashed on takeoff at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, killing all 21 aboard. In 2004, a American Airlines Connection crew that got little rest and were joking around in the cockpit failed to follow proper landing procedures in an accident that killed 11 of 13 passengers in Kirksville, Mo.
Fayette County (Ky.) Coroner Gary Ginn said he expects that the majority of passengers and crew died from the fire that ensued on the plane at the site, rather than smoke inhalation. Ginn said a temporary morgue is being set up at the scene.
The University of Kentucky Hospital is treating the crash's lone survivor, and a hospital spokeswoman said she had no other information about the survivor's injuries other than that he is in critical condition.
The survivor, the first officer was identified as James M. Polehinke, whom Comair's Bornhorst said had been with the airline since 2002. Bornhorst said the captain, Jeffrey Clay, had been with the airline since 1999, and the flight attendant, Kelly Heyer, since 2004.
Bornhorst said the airline had acquired the aircraft new in 2001. Maintenance has been up to date, including routine maintenance performed yesterday, Bornhorst said in a televised news conference. He said maintenance records have been "clean."
"There's nothing we're seeing that jumps out at us" in regards to maintenance issues, Bornhorst said.
While he said he could give few details immediately because of the investigations into the accident, Bornhorst said there "was nothing of any weather challenge that stands out" as a possible cause.
"We can not speculate on the cause of this accident," Bornhorst said, pledging many times during the news conference the company's "full support" and "total commitment" to the investigations of the accident as well as its "top priority" of caring for the loved ones of the passengers and crew of the flight.
Comair established a hotline for families and friends of the victims of the crash: 800-801-0088.
A subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, Comair is based in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Ky.
Goo and Sarasohn reported from Washington. News researcher Rena Kirsch contributed to this report.