Lexington, Ky. – A commuter jet mistakenly trying to take off on a runway that was too short crashed into a field Sunday and burst into flames, killing 49 people and leaving the lone survivor – a co-pilot – in critical condition, federal investigators said.
Preliminary flight data from Comair Flight 5191’s “black box” recorders and the damage at the scene indicate that the plane, a CRJ-100 regional jet, took off from the shortest runway at Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said.
The 3,500-foot-long strip, unlit and barely half the length of the airport’s main runway, is not intended for commercial flights.
The twin-engine CRJ-100 would have needed 5,000 feet to fully get off the ground, aviation experts said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the plane ended up on the shorter runway in the predawn darkness. There was light rain Sunday, and the strip veers off at a V from the main runway, which had been repaved last week.
“We will be looking into performance data; we will be looking at the weight of the aircraft; we will be looking at speeds; we will pull all that information off,” Hersman said.
The Atlanta-bound plane plowed through a perimeter fence and crashed in a field less than a mile from the end of the runway at about 6:07 a.m. Aerial images of the crash site in the rolling hills of Kentucky’s horse country showed trees damaged at the end of the short runway and the nose of the plane almost parallel to the small strip.
When rescuers reached it, the plane was largely intact but in flames. A police officer burned his arms dragging the survivor from the cracked cockpit.
The flames kept rescuers from reaching anyone else aboard – a newlywed couple starting their honeymoon, a Florida man who had caught an early flight home to be with his children and a University of Kentucky official among them.
“They were taking off, so I’m sure they had a lot of fuel on board,” Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said. “Most of the injuries are going to be due to fire-related deaths.”
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency had no indication that terrorism was involved in the country’s worst domestic plane crash in five years.
It’s rare for a plane to get on the wrong runway, but “sometimes with the intersecting runways, pilots go down the wrong one,” said Saint Louis University aerospace professor emeritus Paul Czysz.
The worst such crash came Oct. 31, 2000, when a Los Angeles-bound Singapore Airlines jumbo jet mistakenly went down a runway at Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport that had been closed for repairs because of a recent typhoon. The resulting crash into construction equipment killed 83 people on board.
Comair president Don Bornhorst said maintenance for the plane that crashed Sunday was up to date and that its three- member flight crew was experienced and had been flying that airplane for some time.
“We are absolutely, totally committed to doing everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident,” Bornhorst said. “One of the most damaging things that can happen to an investigation of this magnitude is for speculation or for us to guess at what may be happening.”
Most of the passengers aboard the flight had planned to connect to other flights in Atlanta and did not have family waiting for them, said the Rev. Harold Boyce, a volunteer chaplain at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport.
One woman was there expecting her sister. The two had planned to fly together to catch an Alaskan cruise, Boyce said.
“Naturally, she was very sad,” Boyce said. “She was handling it. She was in tears.”
The survivor was identified as first officer James M. Polehinke, who was in critical condition after surgery at the University of Kentucky hospital.
The other crew members were Capt. Jeffrey Clay, who was hired by Erlanger, Ky.- based Comair in 1999, and flight attendant Kelly Heyer, hired in 2004. Polehinke has been with Comair since 2002.
The plane had undergone routine maintenance as recently as Saturday, Bornhorst said.
Recent U.S. commuter-jet crashes
Oct. 19, 2004: Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 crashes in woods as it approaches Kirksville, Mo., airport, killing 13 of the 15 people on board. Federal investigators blame pilot error.
Jan. 8, 2003: US Airways Express Flight 5481 crashes shortly after leaving the Charlotte, N.C., airport. All 19 passengers and the two crew members are killed. The NTSB determines incorrect rigging of the plane’s elevator control system caused the plane to lose pitch control.
Aug. 21, 1995: Southeast Airlines Flight 529 from Atlanta to Mississippi crashes during an emergency landing in a hay field near Carrolton, Ga., killing eight of the 29 people aboard. A propeller blade breaks off in midflight, causing the aircraft to lose control.
Dec 13, 1994: American Eagle Flight 3379 from Greensboro, N.C., to Raleigh, N.C., crashes in fog 4 miles from its destination, killing 15 of the 20 people aboard. Federal investigators blame pilot error.
Oct. 31, 1994: American Eagle Flight 4184 from Indianapolis to Chicago crashes in Roselawn, Ind., killing all 68 aboard. Investigators blame ice buildup on the aircraft’s wings, which causes it to suddenly roll out of control.
Source: National Transportation Safety Board
