Lexington, Kentuky +Plane Crashes+
Lexington, Kentuky - There are "multiple fatalities" after a 50-seat Delta commuter flight, en route from Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport, crashed near Kentucky's Blue Grass Airport.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said Delta Flight 5191 -- which was operated by Delta's commuter carrier, Comair -- crashed shortly after takeoff in a wooded area about a mile from the airport.
At least 50 people were aboard the flight and it is not known if there were any survivors, the officials said.
Delta Flight 5191 was scheduled to land at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport at 7:18 a.m.
U/D: 09:04
FAA says: All 50 people were killed in the plane crash.
U/D: 09:36
So far one surviver (pilot or co-pilot) was found and is in critical condition.
U/D: 18:37
Data from flight records shows that the Comair Flight 5191 took off on the wrong runway, short and not typically used by commercial jets, before crashing.
posted by VOS IZ NEIAS @ 8/27/2006 08:45:00 AM
2 Comments:
At 10:46 AM,
Anonymous said…
Any yiden?
At 3:44 PM,
Anonymous said…
BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and news services
Updated: 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
A commuter jet taking off for Atlanta crashed just past the runway and burst into flames, killing 49 people before dawn Sunday and leaving the lone survivor in critical condition.
Comair Flight 5191, a CRJ-200 regional jet, crashed at 6:07 a.m., said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the plane to crash in a field just beyond Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport. But sources confirmed for NBC News that the pilot of the flight took off on the wrong runway.
Earlier, Lexington police spokesman Sean Lawson said investigators were looking into that possibility.
Sources also told NBC that only one air traffic controller was in the tower at the time of the accident.
The plane was largely intact, and authorities said rescuers were able to get one crew members out alive, but the county coroner described a devastating fire following the impact.
“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.”
“We are going to say a mass prayer before we begin the work of removing the bodies,” he said.
The crash was the country’s worst domestic airplane accident in nearly six years. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency had no indication that terrorism was involved in any way.
Black boxes found
Both flight recorders, which should help investigators determine what went wrong were found, Ginn said.
The three-member flight crew was experienced and had been flying that airplane for some time, said Comair President Don Bornhorst. He said the plane’s maintenance was up to do. He would not speculate on what happened but said, “We are absolutely, totally committed to doing everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident.”
In Atlanta, most of the passengers aboard that plane had planned to connect to other flights and did not have family waiting for them there, said the Rev. Harold Boyce, a volunteer chaplain at Hartsfield-Jackson airport.
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.”
First officer said to survive crash
The only survivor, believed to be the flight’s first officer, according to airport director Michael Gobb, was in surgery at the University of Kentucky hospital on Sunday morning.
Police and emergency vehicles are seen Sunday near the crash site of Comair flight 5191 in Lexington, Ky.
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Bornhorst identified the three crew members as Capt. Jeffrey Clay, who was hired by Comair in 1999, first officer James M. Polehinke, who was hired in 2002, and flight attendant Kelly Heyer, hired in 2004.
The plane had undergone routine maintenance as recently as Saturday, Bornhorst said. Comair purchased that plane in January 2001, and all maintenance was normal as far as the information Comair had Sunday morning, he said.
The plane had 14,500 flight hours, “consistent with aircraft of that age,” Bornhorst said. Comair is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc. based in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Ky.
Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the crash.
If the plane was on the wrong runway, it could have been shorter than the pilot expected. The main runway at Lexington’s airport is 7,000 feet long, while a daytime-only, unlit general aviation runway is about 3,500 feet.
Chief Scott Lanter of the airport fire department said the crash was about a mile off the end of the shorter runway.
“We don’t know which runway they were using,” he said.
• 49 dead in Ky. plane crash•
• 49 dead in Ky. plane crash
THIS IS MOST OF THE STORY STORY DOES CONTINUE THOUGH CANT POST IT THOUGH AT THIS TIME.
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