http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,210650,00.html

Plane Carrying 50 Crashes in Kentucky; At Least 1 Survivor

Sunday , August 27, 2006

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A commuter jet carrying 50 people crashed in a field and caught fire shortly after taking off in light rain Sunday morning. Authorities said at least one person survived.

Comair Flight 5191, a CRJ-200 regional jet with 47 passengers and three crew members, crashed at 6:07 a.m. after taking off for Atlanta, said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman.

There was no immediate word on what caused the crash in a field about a mile from Blue Grass Airport. The plane was largely intact afterward, but there was a fire following the impact, police said.

"We have no indication at all that this has anything to do with terrorism," said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA.

The crash marks the end of what has been called the "safest period in aviation history" in the United States.

The University of Kentucky hospital was treating one survivor, who was in critical condition, spokesman Jay Blanton said. No other survivors have been brought to the hospital, he said.

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said the passengers and crew appeared to still be on the plane and the deaths were caused either by the impact or the "hot fire" on board.

"We are going to say a mass prayer before we begin the work of removing the bodies," Ginn said, referring to the chaplains who serve the airport.

A temporary morgue was being set up at the scene and the bodies will be brought to the state medical examiner's office in Frankfort, Ginn said.

He said both flight recorders have been found.

Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the scene, said Brown of the FAA.

The airport closed for three hours after the crash, but reopened by 9 a.m.

Chaplains at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport were meeting with family members waiting for their loved ones at the airport, said the Rev. Harold Boyce, an airport chaplain.

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 by aides. The news of it broke while he and his wife, Laura, where at church with the elder Bushes. Perino had no other information about the crash.

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

The Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100 is a twin-engine aircraft that can carry up to 50 passengers, according to Delta's Web site.

There has not been a major crash in the United States 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.

On Jan. 8, 2003, an Air Midwest commuter plane crashed on takeoff at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, killing all 21 aboard.

Last December, a seaplane operated by Chalk's Ocean Airways crashed off Miami Beach when its right wing separated from the fuselage shortly after takeoff, killing the 18 passengers and two crew members. That plane, a Grumman G-73 Turbo Mallard, was built in 1947 and modified significantly in 1979.

The NTSB's last record of a CRJ crash was on November 21, 2004, when a China Eastern-Yunnan Airlines Bombardier crashed shortly after takeoff. The 6 crew members and 47 passengers on the CRJ-200 were killed, and there were two fatalities on the ground.

Very sad to see. The CRJ has a great safety record and is one of the best selling commercial planes of all time.

i second that, i used to work on crj for 4yrs and never had a major problem beside the birds hit on the plane

I don't know, does one isolated incident really end the safest period in aviation history? What if there's another 15 years without a plane crash, couldn't they include the last five years as one era with an isolated incident? Maybe I'm too mathematically minded, but it seems like one isolated incident can very well be an outlier.

One guy survived.

Anyone else thinking this is just some kind of marketing ploy for NBC's Heroes?

This is sad...but apparently not too big of news, cuz it's not all over the news and on the internet.

Anything less than 100 dead these days is just soooo blase.

I'm local to the crash, and it's been on tv all day here. I called around and nobody I knew was flying today, so that's a relief, but I'm sure once we all get back to work tomorrow we'll know someone. Lexington is a small city (200k), so it's kinda 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon 'round here.

The news said the co-pilot was the only one who survived & he's in critical condition, so who knows...

My neighbor's brother is a member of the National Guard & was called out there to deal w/ it. Pretty horrible crash site, I"m sure...

One guy survived, that's beyond crazy . Hope he makes it.

Fucker, you beat me to it.

I interned in the CRJ structural engineering department for one summer and the safety records were always impeccable. In what capacity did you work with these planes?

Exactly what I was thinking, except this guy got fucked up real nice it seems.

its still a very safe aircraft, not alot you can do when the pilots take off from the wrong runway

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/08/28/kentucky-crash.html


Two Canadians who died in a fiery airplane crash in Kentucky that killed 49 people on the weekend are believed to be from the Ottawa area, some reports said.

Investigators have started their probe into the Sunday incident involving Comair Flight 5191, which took the wrong runway, and then crashed and burned in a field in Lexington. Investigators said they want to find out why it took a runway deemed too short for commercial passenger planes.

Foreign Affairs officials have not yet released the names of the two Canadians killed. Next of kin were still being notified.

But media are reporting that the two are from the Ottawa area.

Two black-box recorders were retrieved after the crash, which had taken off at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. Only the co-pilot survived.

"We will be taking a look at the weight of the aircraft, the runway available and where they should have been," U.S. National Transportation Safety Board member Deborah Hersman said Monday on NBC's Today show. "We certainly are going to be looking at how to prevent something like this from occurring in the future."

Plane's first officer only survivor

The airport's main runway is 2,133 metres long, but for some reason, the plane used the 1,066-metre general aviation runway. Experts said the aircraft, a twin-engine CRJ-100, would have required at least 1,524 metres to launch properly.

The lone survivor, James M. Polehinke, the plane's first officer, was pulled from the cockpit just before Flight 5191 went up in flames after crashing. He remains in critical condition at the University of Kentucky Hospital.

Pieces of the wreckage were still scattered around the runway Monday.

"We are absolutely, totally committed to doing everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident," Comair president Don Bornhorst said Sunday.

Bornhorst said the plane's maintenance was up to date, and all three flight crew members were experienced and had been flying it for some time.

The crash ended what has been called the "safest period in aviation history" in the U.S.

The last major crash occurred on Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight ended up in a residential neighbourhood in New York City and 265 people died, including five people on the ground.

I think we can safely attribute this crash to "human error".

I tend to think that the controllers were at fault, as a pilot usually takes off from the runway he's directed to take off from. They don't normally "get lost" on the way to take off.

The Globe and Mail had maps of the runways and there were only two of them. I have a hard time understanding how an error like this could be made, it just seems like such a stupid mistake. It was a regional flight that was made on a daily basis, so you'd think the pilots would be familiar with airport...and the air traffic controller should be acutely aware of which runway was appropriate for that size plane.

apparently this runway is noticably different from other runways -- cracks in the surface...a different surface. and that's not mentioning the signs.

i'd like to hear if the investigation brings about anything.

however, this is why i hate flying. i have absolutely no control over my life.

Exactly. If i get into a car crash at least i have even some miniscule amount of control. In a plane i'm putting my life in someone elses hands, while passively strapped to a seat waiting to die.