31 replies to this topic

[InterAir]

It is also possible to stall just after takeoff. pull back a little too much without watching your airspeed.

After reading the story its actually a pretty likely scenario, IF indeed they took off the wrong runway which was much shorter than the one they were cleared for they may have realised they might be running out of runway and pulled back on the stick too hard trying to clear obstacles and get off the ground before they ran out of runway thus stalling the aircraft.

[airline55]

I mentioned earlier that most deaths are due to the fire rather than the crash itself. yikes, I seem to remember a very similar situation with ASA (I think)

[caro]

It is also possible to stall just after takeoff. pull back a little too much without watching your airspeed.

After reading the story its actually a pretty likely scenario, IF indeed they took off the wrong runway which was much shorter than the one they were cleared for they may have realised they might be running out of runway and pulled back on the stick too hard trying to clear obstacles and get off the ground before they ran out of runway thus stalling the aircraft.

Absolutely possible, especially if the Capt. had a 7000'+ runway in mind, with a setting of 80% N1 on the engines, where a 3500' runway would require 95-100% N1 in order to reach Vr before the threshold. Pulled too hard on the yoke, a deep stall occured, not enough speed for controlled flight. Especially right after t/o, with a lot of fuel on board.

BTW, it wasn't a CRJ that took off when they showed the overhead shots; it was a GIV or a GV. And the stock photo that CNN kept showing was of A/C 10129, one of the last Comair CRJ700, taken almost 2 years ago in Mirabel, Qc. It was painted with the "1000 CRJ" logo, just aft of the pax door.

[travelhouse]

This is the latest News and Pic's link:

Crashed Plane Used Wrong Runway
Provided By: The Associated Press
Last Modified: 8/27/2006 11:21:29 PM


By JEFFREY McMURRAY
Associated Press Writer

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- 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 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 a light rain Sunday, and the strip veers off at a V from the main runway, which had just 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 mile from the end of that 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 only 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."

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency had no indication that terrorism was involved in any way in what was 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 on 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 collision with construction equipment killed 83 people on board.

Comair President Don Bornhorst said maintenance for the plane that crashed Sunday was up to date and 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 only survivor of the crash was identified as first officer James M. Polehinke, 44, who was in critical condition after surgery at the University of Kentucky hospital.

"He's very lucky," said Dr. Andrew C. Bernard, a trauma surgeon.

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.

All 49 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage, said Stacy Floden, spokeswoman for the state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. No positive identifications had been made yet, and preliminary autopsies had been done on 16 or 17 bodies, she said.

The plane had undergone routine maintenance as recently as Saturday and had 14,500 flight hours, "consistent with aircraft of that age," Bornhorst said.

Investigators from the FAA and NTSB were at the scene, and Bornhorst said the airline was working to contact relatives of the passengers.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush, who is spending a long weekend at his family's summer home on the Maine coast, was being briefed on the crash.

"The president was deeply saddened by the news of the plane crash in Kentucky today," she said. "His sympathies are with the many families of the victims of this tragedy."

Among those killed were a newlywed couple starting their honeymoon. Jon Hooker, a former minor-league baseball player, had just married Scarlett Parlsey the night before the crash in a fairy tale wedding ceremony complete with a horse-drawn carriage and 300 friends.

"It's so tragic because he was so happy last night," said Keith Madison, who coached Hooker's baseball team at the University of Kentucky and attended the wedding. "It's just an incredible turn of events. It's really painful."

The crash marks the end of what has been called the "safest period in aviation history" in the United States. There has not been a major crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

Associated Press writers Leslie Miller in Washington and Harry Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.



Latest News Pic's are here:

http://www.11alive.c...x?storyid=83864

[miller22 (inactive)]

Good article.

I never did fly with Captain Clay, but I did fly several times with Kelly, the flight attendant. He was one of my top 5 favorite to fly with. Not only did he do his job well, but he always had an impressive perspective of the situation and was never ever judgemental to anyone. I remember on several occasions thinking I should be more like him in those regards.

[airline55]

the black boxes have revealed a bit more, and its not good. The data recorder confirms that the plane was on a heading of 026 when it took off, not 022 as it should have been. It did indeed take off on the wring runway. It now seems that the plane may never have gotten off the ground, because it crashed into the fence at the end of the runway and caught fire.

[travelhouse]

the black boxes have revealed a bit more, and its not good. The data recorder confirms that the plane was on a heading of 026 when it took off, not 022 as it should have been. It did indeed take off on the wring runway. It now seems that the plane may never have gotten off the ground, because it crashed into the fence at the end of the runway and caught fire.

Well thats exactly what the news report stated.

Preliminary flight data from Comair Flight 5191's black box recorders and the damage at the scene indicate 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.

The Atlanta-bound plane plowed through a perimeter fence and crashed in a field less than mile from the end of that 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.

[airline55]

ah, I didn't see that.

oh well.

[whowey]

The crash marks the end of what has been called the "safest period in aviation history" in the United States. There has not been a major crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

Who gets to define 'major crash'? 49 people is a 'major crash', but 21 is not? (Air Midwest January 8, 2003)

How about 13 people?(Corporate(now RegionsAir) Air October 19,2004)

Not referring to the other accidents as 'major' seems to really overlook them.

[airline55]

A major crash would probably require a few things, but I don't know what.

[n777co]

7472 was the tail number of the aircraft.

I think the registration on that plane was N432CA if you look here at this post on Wings900.com
It is sad that almost all the people on the plane died. RIP

[whowey]

I think the registration on that plane was N432CA if you look here at this post on Wings900.com
It is sad that almost all the people on the plane died. RIP

I was typing that as I watched Don Hornborst's press conference. I was trying to get as much information as I could.