The Comair commuter jet that crashed Sunday only seconds after taking off on the wrong runway in Kentucky never had a chance to attain the speed required to stay in the air, according to aviation experts.
The experts questioned how the pilots committed the fatal mistake, which started with a wrong turn onto a shorter runway, and then failed to catch it through a series of checks that are supposed to take place before takeoff.
It was the deadliest U.S. commercial airline crash in nearly five years.
Forty-nine of the 50 people on the plane were killed when the regional jet smashed into a hill after the pilots used a runway half the length of the intended runway at Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport, authorities said. The co-pilot, the only survivor on the Atlanta-bound flight, was in critical condition Sunday night after surgery.
Many of the victims may have survived the crash impact, but a fast-moving fire scorched the fuselage, said Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn.
“From what I can see and where the bodies were placed, there was some reaction” among passengers to possibly try to evacuate, Ginn said.
The 50-seat CRJ100 required a runway length of at least 5,250 feet to achieve the takeoff speed needed to carry its full load of 46 passengers, two pilots, a flight attendant and an off-duty pilot riding in a fold-down jump seat, according to Bombardier, the plane manufacturer.
But Comair Flight 5191 took off from Runway 26, a 3,500-foot runway intended only for small general aviation planes, instead of Runway 22, the 7,003-foot runway reserved for commercial aircraft, said Deborah Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The plane struck an airport perimeter fence while struggling to climb and crashed about a half-mile from the airport, Hersman said. She said wreckage was spread over a large area.
“We have ground scars at the end of [Runway] 26,” Hersman said.
Information from the twin-engine plane’s flight data recorder, or “black box,” confirmed the plane was lined up on the shorter runway, Hersman said.
A preliminary review of radio tapes in the early-morning crash indicated that the air-traffic controller on duty cleared the Comair pilots to taxi and take off from the longer runway, Hersman said.
Officials planned to interview the controller. They would not disclose what the controller may have seen from the airport tower, nor what he or she was doing when the plane departed.
But the pilot in command, once given taxi and takeoff instructions, is responsible for safe operations.
The plane’s captain was identified as Jeffrey Clay, 35, who joined Comair in November 1999.
The co-pilot, James Polehinke, 44, was pulled from the burning wreckage by a Lexington police officer and two airport security guards, officials said. Polehinke, an employee of Comair since March 2002, was fighting for his life Sunday night at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
While what is expected to be a yearlong crash inquiry has just begun, authorities said it is clear the 5-year-old Comair plane never generated the necessary ground speed on the short runway to maintain its acceleration in the air.
Aircraft weight and balance calculations performed to ensure a safe takeoff are based on many factors, including available runway distance and course heading, wind direction and wind speed. The calculations produce an acceptable aircraft speed for every takeoff.
At maximum takeoff weight, the CRJ100 normally would lift off at 130 to 150 knots, according to Bombardier.
A key focus will be on how the two pilots, the off-duty pilot riding with them and the controller in the airport tower failed to intervene after the wrong turn was made onto Runway 26, experts said.
“We’re still working on determining what was going on in the cockpit and what information was discussed between air-traffic controllers and the pilot,” Hersman said.
Radio tapes will be critical
The radio tapes will be critical to assess whether the pilots followed their preflight checklist and conducted themselves properly by limiting conversation to flight-related business.
“I’ve always questioned whether airlines should be allowing people to ride in the jump seat. I’ve always felt that two people in the cockpit was safe, while three was a distraction,” said Aaron Gellman, an aviation safety expert at Northwestern University.
The Blue Grass Airport is an uncomplicated airfield with only two runways. The same taxiway is used to shuttle between the passenger terminal building and the ends of the two runways on the east side of the airport. Airline pilots taxiing to Runway 22 must cross the tip of Runway 26 while en route.
Investigators are expected to focus on whether the proximity of the ends of the runways factored into the possible confusion in Sunday’s crash.
The deadliest crash involving a missed runway assignment occurred on Oct. 31, 2000, when a Singapore Airlines jet bound for Los Angeles rolled down a closed runway in Taiwan. The plane struck construction equipment on the runway, resulting in 83 deaths on board the plane.
The last major airline crash in the U.S. occurred on Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines plane crashed into a residential area of Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people.
The two pilots in Sunday’s crash had a combined 11 years of service at Comair, which is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines.
Although Comair President Don Bornhorst said the pilots were experienced and had flown the airplane for some time, the flight crew apparently ignored a string of warning signs, according to experts and airline pilots.
A routine check of the onboard compass and directional gyroscope would have alerted the Comair pilots that they were set to take off on a 260-degree heading from Runway 26 instead of the assigned 220-degree heading on Runway 22.
The longer runway the pilots should have been on runs northeast to southwest, while the shorter runway runs about 10 degrees off a straight east-west heading.
“Navigating on the airport surface is a standard part of every takeoff. The runway numbers are painted on the pavement and you have an airport surface diagram in your lap,” said William Cotton, a retired United Airlines captain who managed the airline’s air traffic division. “It’s just not common to think you are on one runway when you actually are on another,” Cotton said.
In addition to the commercial runway being twice as long as the general aviation runway, the longer runway is 150 feet wide, versus only a 75-foot width for the shorter runway.
The wingspan on a CRJ100 is about 70 feet, which might have served as a visual cue to the Comair pilots looking out the cockpit windshield that they were on the wrong runway.
“The wingtips would’ve been sticking out pretty near to the side of what should have appeared to be a very narrow runway,” Cotton said.
Also, the shorter runway at the Lexington airport is designated for daytime use only, because it does not have runway lights. But the Comair pilots, taking off shortly after 6 a.m. in a slight rain, apparently failed to notice the absence of lighting on their predawn flight. The floodlights on the airplane’s wings provided the only illumination. The longer runway was equipped with lights.
“For a flight crew, I find what happened on Sunday to be inexcusable,” said a commuter airline pilot who flies frequently to the Blue Grass Airport who asked not to be identified. “I am sure the investigation will turn up some mitigating circumstances, but the whole reason for having checks and balances is to prevent a tragedy like this.”
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Tribune staff reporter Charles Sheehan reported from Lexington, with Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch in Chicago.
csheehan@tribune.com
jhilkevitch@tribune.com
