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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Plane Crash at Bluegrass Field Lexington Ky
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Darryl Spicer
Film God
Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000
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posted 08-27-2006 02:59 PM
CNN (CNN) -- Forty-nine of the 50 people aboard Delta Flight 5191 were killed when the aircraft crashed Sunday morning shortly after takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, according to Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn.
Ginn said he believes most people died from fire-related causes "rather than smoke inhalation."
Flight 5191 -- operated by Delta Air Lines' commuter carrier, Comair -- was en route to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where it was scheduled to land at 7:18 a.m. ET.
First responders extricated the crew's first officer -- the crash's lone survivor -- according to Blue Grass Airport's Chief of Public Safety Scott Lanter.
They "observed movement at the front of the aircraft, and then extricated the first officer from the nose of the airplane," Lanter said.
Comair President Don Bornhorst identified the first officer as James Polehinke.
Polehinke was in critical condition at University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, airline and hospital officials said.
There were 47 passengers and three crew members aboard the flight. One of the passengers was off duty, sitting in the plane's jump seat, Blue Grass Airport Director Michael Gobb said.
Flight 5191 was cleared for take-off at 6:05 a.m. ET, which was the last communication between the pilot and air-traffic controllers at the airport, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.
The plane crashed about a half-mile from the end of the runway, said Bornhorst, Comair's president.
Two sources told CNN that radar identifying the plane's location shortly before it crashed indicates that it took off from the wrong runway -- one that was 3,500 feet shorter than the other.
The Bombardier Canadian Regional Jet (CRJ)-200 was cleared to take off from runway 22, which is more than 7,000 feet long, the sources said.
Instead, it took off from runway 26, which is 3,500 feet long, the sources said.
That length is "pretty short for that type of aircraft," former National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bob Francis told CNN.
Lanter confirmed that the crash site was at the end of runway 26 but would not speculate from which runway the flight took off.
"Part of the investigation will establish what runway they were using," Lanter said. "Based on the information we received for the incident, we don't know what runway they were using."
Asked about the possibility that the wrong runway was used, Bornhorst told reporters, "I think that is a rumor and speculation that would be not good for any of us to go down right now."
NTSB investigators could take up to a year before formally ruling on the cause of the crash.
Gobb said the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder "have been retrieved and turned over."
County Coroner Ginn said much of the aircraft remained intact, despite a heavy fire that "traveled with the plane." The airport's fire department "got there very fast ... and because of that, we're able to keep a lot of the plane intact," he said.
"We are going to say a mass prayer before we begin the work of removing the bodies," County Coroner Ginn told The Associated Press, referring to the chaplains who serve the airport.
The coroner's office has set up a temporary morgue in Frankfort -- about 30 miles west of Lexington -- "in order to expedite the autopsies," Ginn said.
He said he is asking family members for dental records to help make identifications.
Comair purchased the CRJ-200 from Bombardier in January 2001 and said its maintenance was up-to-date.
That type of plane has a good track record, according to the NTSB Web site.
Bornhorst said the flight crew had been "on a legal rest period far beyond what is required," but the specifics of the crew's schedule will be part of the NTSB investigation.
The pilot, Capt. Jeffrey Clay, began work with Comair in 1999 and was promoted two years ago to captain, Bornhorst said.
Polehinke has worked for Comair since 2002, and Kelly Heyer, the male flight attendant, had been employed with the carrier since 2004, he said.
The plane went down before sunrise, and scared residents who initially thought it was bad weather.
"I really thought it was a big clap of thunder, so (I) didn't think much about it until I heard all the sirens," one man said.
Another man described what he saw from his back door.
"Over the hillside, I saw a flash of light and then an explosion, and then just a big plume of smoke come up," he said.
In Atlanta, most of the passengers aboard the crashed plane had planned to connect to other flights and did not have family waiting for them there, the Rev. Harold Boyce, a volunteer chaplain at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, told the AP.
One woman was there expecting her sister on the flight. The two had planned to fly together to catch an Alaskan cruise, he said.
"Naturally, she was very sad," Boyce said. "She was handling it. She was in tears."
NTSB investigators are heading to the crash site to begin an investigation.
CNN's Mike Ahlers and Miles O'Brien contributed to this report.
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Ron Yost
Master Film Handler
Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted 08-28-2006 01:18 PM
So, there was maybe no occupied tower (I guess this is 'normal' for a podunk airport, but sure seems stupid when there are commercial flights), runway lights that weren't in working order, charts that weren't updated by the airport, officers half-asleep and impaired .. not that they receive proper training in the first place. These regional and 'feeder' operations are mostly low-bid farm clubs for commercial aviation. Least pay, least training, least hours, least experienced pilots and engineers, period. Think about that next time you hop on one.
Yes, I know aviation folks will remind us these terrible accidents are rare. And, thank God they are .. so far. Small comfort for the families who's loved ones were burned alive thanks to so-called professionals failing at their jobs, and a very lax operation all around, it seems.
Ron Yost .. damn near got killed in a Comair flight myself years ago. Waaaaaay to 'casual' an operation for my taste.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-28-2006 02:22 PM
quote: Ron Yost Yes, I know aviation folks will remind us these terrible accidents are rare. And, thank God they are .. so far. Small comfort for the families who's loved ones were burned alive thanks to so-called professionals failing at their jobs, and a very lax operation all around, it seems.
My recently-moved-in neighbour is a pilot with the airline I regularly fly from an English regional airport (Durham/Tees Valley) to London and back on. She agrees that it's looking like either the pilots, the air traffic controllers or both made a tragic mistake in this case (because there's no other explanation for the aircraft having attempted to take off from the wrong runway), but made the point that all are professionals, none wanted this to happen and that therefore the priority should be to go back over what happened, identify the weak points in the system, fix them and learn the lessons.
I flew on a Delta CRJ from Bangor, Maine to Boston last month: the whole experience was normal, routine and completely unremarkable. I guess the whole thing about air travel is that it's like that on 999,999 out of 1,000,000 flights; but the one on which it isn't has a horrible habit of being a tragedy rather than a minor accident. My condolances to the deceased, their relatives and friends.
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Ron Yost
Master Film Handler
Posts: 344
From: Paso Robles, CA
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted 08-29-2006 08:41 PM
An update:
NTSB: Tower didn't notice deadly mistake By JEFFREY McMURRAY AP, Aug. 29, 2006
The lone air traffic controller on duty the morning Comair Flight 5191 crashed cleared the jet for takeoff, then turned his back to do some "administrative duties" as the aircraft veered down the wrong runway, a federal investigator said Tuesday.
Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged violating its own policies when it assigned only one controller to the Lexington tower.
The commuter jet struggled to get airborne and crashed in a field before daybreak Sunday, killing 49 of the 50 people aboard, after taking off from a 3,500-foot runway instead of an adjoining one that was twice as long. Experts said the plane needed at least 5,000 feet for takeoff. The sole survivor, first officer James Polehinke, was in critical condition Tuesday.
The air traffic controller had an unobstructed view of the runways and had cleared the aircraft for takeoff from the longer runway, said National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman.
Then, "he turned his back to perform administrative duties," Hersman said. "At that point, he was doing a traffic count."
The controller, whose name was not released, had been working at the Lexington airport for 17 years and was fully qualified, Hersman said.
Polehinke was flying the plane when it crashed, but it was the flight's captain, Jeffrey Clay, who taxied the aircraft onto the wrong runway, Hersman said. Clay then turned over the controls to Polehinke for takeoff, the investigator said.
Polehinke was pulled from the burning plane after the crash but has not been able to tell investigators why the pilots tried to take off from the wrong runway.
Both crew members were familiar with the Lexington airport, according to Hersman. She said Clay had been there six times in the past two years, and Polehinke had been there 10 times in the past two years — but neither had been to the airport since a taxiway repaving project just a week earlier that had altered the taxiway route.
Earlier Tuesday, the FAA admitted it violated a policy, outlined in a November 2005 directive, requiring that control tower observations and radar approach operations be handled by separate controllers.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the controller at the Lexington airport had to do his own job — keeping track of airplanes on the ground and in the air up to a few miles away — as well as radar duties.
Before Hersman's briefing on Tuesday, the NTSB said Polehinke was flying the plane; it made no mention of Clay being the one who taxied the plane into position.
Polehinke's mother, Honey Jackson, said her son is not to blame for the crash, and she asked people to be patient until all the facts were revealed.
"He could die at any moment," said Jackson, a lounge singer who lives in Miami.
Jackson's boyfriend and business manager, Antonio Cruz, said the 44-year-old Polehinke was on life support, with punctured lungs and a broken pelvis. He was scheduled to have the first of many operations Tuesday, Cruz said.
"Nobody can say for sure yet if he'll be able to recover," Cruz said.
Federal officials are looking into whether runway lights or a repaving project a week before the crash confused the crew into turning onto the wrong runway.
On Monday night, investigators used the same model of aircraft that crashed, a CRJ-100, to try to recreate the last few minutes of Flight 5191 as it taxied away from Blue Grass Airport's terminal.
Polehinke had a clean record as a pilot, with no accidents or mistakes, authorities said.
Polehinke spent five years — from 1997 to 2002 — flying short-range, twin-engine planes for Florida-based Gulfstream International Airlines. He flew at small airports all over Florida and the Bahamas, starting as a first officer and getting promoted to captain in 2000.
Tom Herfort, director of operations for Gulfstream, was a pilot for the company at the same time as Polehinke. He recalled no problems with his colleague.
"You know who's got the good reputation and who doesn't. I didn't hear anything bad about the guy," Herfort said. "As far as I know, he was a good captain for us."
Jackson said newspaper reports about her son were lies, but Cruz confirmed newspaper reports that Polehinke's wife, Ida, shot him in the abdomen with a handgun in 1999. Polehinke said the shooting was an accident, but his wife told police she shot Polehinke because she feared for her life after her husband threatened to kill her, The Miami Herald reported.
Polehinke declined to press charges, and Cruz said the couple had resolved their problems.
"They have overcome it, and they are working it out," he said. "It is a good relationship. They were supposed to travel to Italy or something, just the two of them." -60
Associated Press writers Leslie Miller in Washington; Bruce Schreiner in Louisville; and Melissa Nelson in Pensacola, Fla., contributed to this report.
.. Ron Yost
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