KY. plane crash

[smutt butt]

I have been watching and rewading about that crash in kentucky yesterday and i can't help but wonder why in the hell the controller didn't tell the pilot he was on the wrong runway? When i have flown into a airport that i have never been to i just tell the ground controller to walk me thru it and he tells me every turn to make. It just doesn't make any sense that no one from ground control saw what was happening.

[Lethalfind]

I have been watching and rewading about that crash in kentucky yesterday and i can't help but wonder why in the hell the controller didn't tell the pilot he was on the wrong runway? When i have flown into a airport that i have never been to i just tell the ground controller to walk me thru it and he tells me every turn to make. It just doesn't make any sense that no one from ground control saw what was happening.

 

NTSB: Comair Pilot Cleared For Correct Runway

 

"Cockpit recordings reveal that the pilot of a Comair jet that crashed Sunday in Lexington tried to take off on a runway too short for his aircraft, and he had been cleared to use the correct -- and longer -- runway.

 

 

The crash killed all but one of the 50 people on board. Only co-pilot James Polehinke survived. He was pulled from the wreckage by a local police officer.

 

The airport's director said the taxi route for commercial jets using the main runway at Blue Grass Airport was altered just a week ago. Both the old route and the new one cross over the shorter general-aviation runway -- the one that the jet used to try to take off Sunday.

 

The jet that crashed needs about 5,000 feet of runway to build up enough speed for takeoff. The general aviation runway in Lexington is about 1,500 shorter than that.

National Transportation Safety Board member Deborah Hersman said the crew and the control tower, in their pre-takeoff conversations, were talking about the correct runway, and it's still not clear how the plane ended up on the other one.

 

One expert said "ground scars" at the end of a runway show the pilot of the doomed flight was trying to pull up fast to get the jet airborne.

Crews will try to get a sense of what the pilot was seeing in the minutes before the crash, in hopes of finding out what might have caused the confusion. To do so, they will ride in a truck with the windows the same height as the airplane, Hersman said.

Hersman said there will also be an investigation to determine if any of the crew members had consumed alcohol or had taken illicit drugs.

A police officer who rushed to the scene pulled out the plane's co-pilot. But the flames were too intense to save anyone else.

Comair President Don Bornhorst said Capt. Jeffery Clay had been a pilot with Comair for seven years and was very familiar with the aircraft.

Bornhorst also said the jet was purchased new in January 2001 and had up-to-date, clean maintenance records.

The crash marks the end of what has been called the "safest period in aviation history." There hasn't been a major plane crash since November 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people."

 

http://www.local6.com/news/9745895/detail.html

 

What a horrible tragedy. I still would have thought the air traffic controller would have realized what was going on, or should have at least.

This is a shortened version of the article that I copied and pasted.

[hugo]

If God wanted man to fly he would have given us wings.

[Jhony5]

If God wanted man to fly he would have given us wings.

I wonder if people that are about to die in a plane wreck think about all the times they've heard someone say "Airplane travel is safer then car travel"? Whenever I hear some asshat say that I always respond with "Then why don't they make airbags for airplane passengers"? Well I think it's funny. C'mon it's funny, right? Laugh god dammit.

[Lethalfind]

I read an article yesterday that said the guy that survived was the one piloting the plane. It should be interesting to see what he says when and if he wakes up.

 

I also saw a diagram of the runways and actual photos, there wasn't any signs like you see in commercial airports, the ones that are backlit saying the number of the runway, I assume due to the recent renovation.

[angie]

There was only 1 person working in air traffic control (which is apparently a big no-no, punishable by death by the FAA). Somebody's in trouble......

[Lethalfind]

There was only 1 person working in air traffic control (which is apparently a big no-no, punishable by death by the FAA). Somebody's in trouble......

 

WOW, I hadn't heard that. I used to have a neighbor that is an air traffic controller at the Daytona Beach airport. He did mention something along those lines.

 

I imagine more then one person will be in trouble for this. Its not like it was only property damage because of this, was it 49 people died because of this??

 

Sorry to sound litigious but I would sue the ass off the airport AND the airline if my loved ones were lost in something like this. Two of the passengers were newlyweds, one passenger was an employee of Habitat for Humanity. Very sad.

[angie]

I would think the pilot and the one traffic controller will have to answer for it (not to mention the FAA) unless the pilot was unaware of the situation, though ignorance shouldn't be an excuse.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/29/plane.crash/index.html

he Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday acknowledged that only one controller was in the tower, in violation of FAA policy, when a Comair jet crashed Sunday while trying to take off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Kentucky.

The acknowledgment came after CNN obtained a November 2005 FAA memorandum spelling out staffing levels at the airport. The memo says two controllers are needed to perform two jobs -- monitoring air traffic on radar and performing other tower functions, such as communicating with taxiing aircraft.

 

In instances when two controllers are not available, the memo says, the radar monitoring function should be handed off to the FAA's Indianapolis Center.

The FAA confirmed to CNN on Tuesday that the lone controller was performing both functions Sunday at Blue Grass Airport in violation of the FAA policy.

 

The FAA should have scheduled a second controller for the overnight shift or should have shifted radar responsibilities to Indianapolis Center, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.

[Lethalfind]

I read today that the ONE controller cleared this plane to take off but turned his back to complete some administrative tasks before the plane took off.

 

He was scheduled to work alone...NICE.

Now he's on the hot seat.