Lexington, Ky. – Pilots of a Comair jet noticed there were no lights as they prepared to take off, but they didn’t recognize they were headed down the wrong runway before crashing, investigators said Monday.
The only survivor of Sunday’s crash that killed 49 people, first officer James M. Polehinke, was piloting the plane, said Debbie Hersman, a National Transportation Safety Board member.
He remained in critical condition Monday at the University of Kentucky Hospital.
The cockpit voice recorder showed that the pilots were talking about the absence of lights on the runway but that they didn’t report it to the control tower, Hersman said.
Investigators in the jet crash were looking into whether the runway lights or changes made to a taxiway during a repaving project a week ago confused the pilot and caused him to turn the wrong way.
The old and new taxiway routes cross over the short runway where Flight 5191 tried to take off before crashing into a grassy field and bursting into flame, airport executive director Michael Gobb told The Associated Press.
It was unclear whether the Comair pilots had seen the airport since the taxi route changes.
Lowell Wiley, a flight instructor who flies almost every day out of Lexington, said he was confused by the redirected taxi route when he was with a student Friday.
“When we taxied out, we did not expect to see a barrier strung across the old taxiway,” he said. “It was a total surprise.”
Investigators planned to use a high truck to simulate the pilots’ view of the runways and taxiways in their efforts to determine why the jet turned onto a shorter runway.
Authorities also planned to prepare a full report on the pilots, including what they did on and off duty for several days before the crash, the worst U.S. plane disaster since 2001.
All discussions between the plane and the control tower were about a takeoff from the main strip, Runway 22, which is 7,000 feet long, Hersman said.
Two other flights departed without problems, but somehow the commuter jet ended up on Runway 26 – a surface about 3,500 feet long that forms an “X” with the main runway and is meant for small planes. Experts say the jet would have needed 5,000 feet to get airborne.
