Posted on 09/08/2006 6:00:35 AM PDT by Renfield
All evidence I have seen screams pilot error.
I wonder if they did any BAC testing of the surviving co-pilot?
As a Civil Air Patrol mission pilot (Search and Rescue pilot) it bewilders me why that commercial craft crossed a lighted runway and selected the dark runway. Makes no logic.
The investigation will include blood tox work on the aircrew as a matter of procedure. Not that this is always foolproof. One accident investigation in the '50's initially showed the pilot and co-pilot to be sauced. It was later demonstrated that, after the crash, their bodies adsorbed alcohol from the plane's de-icing system. The plane had crashed in the water, and the deice fluid was dumped into the cockpit.
Over here...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1697688/posts?page=24
... they're blaming Satan.
They likely did. I believe it's part of the followup protocol, testing blood levels of crew members (alive or dead).
"The investigation will include blood tox work on the aircrew as a matter of procedure. Not that this is always foolproof."
One other complication is that decomposition produces alcohol. I believe the Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI)makes note of this in their reports when minute amounts of alcohol are found.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — The co-pilot who survived the crash of Comair Flight 5191 has asked family members from his hospital bed, “Why did God do this to me?” but hasn’t mentioned the crash.
Found at: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060906/NEWS01/60906014
But why should that stop this writer?
What happened is and will forever be about as pure a case of pilot error as you will ever hear about. There has been no assertion of any mechanical failure. And how many controllers were or were not in the tower is of little or no importance in this instance.
We can all speculate, but we don't know. Ultimately pilot error can usually be blamed for non-mechanical accidents. HOWEVER, the point of the NTSB is to find out WHY that error occurred and to try to make it less likely to occur next time.
Over here...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1697688/posts?page=24
... they're blaming Satan.
Well, they're clearly wrong. The sole survivor is blaming God, and his firsthand account is the only one we have.
The immediate cause was that they took off on the wrong runway. If you are asking why they did that, it is because of crew fatigue.
The crew in question arrived in Lexington at 10pm. This would put them in their hotel room at around 11:30 or so. They reported back at 4:30 in the morning. Which means that they probably woke up between 3:30 and 4.
Comair 5191 crashed because the crew was likely trying to fly on 3 hours of sleep.
As for the rules that supposedly demand crew rest? The crew was on a stand up overnight. Normally what happens is that if a pilot is called in to work, the airline has to pay a minimum amount. This makes sense, and keeps a dispatcher from parking a crew at an airport for 14 hours and paying them for 1 or 2.
The consequence of this is that if you want to cover two days of flying, you pay for two days of crew time. The stand up overnight is a mechanism by which disreputable airlines schedule a 16 hour duty day over the middle of the night to try and cover two days of flying and only incur one pay period. It saves management money, but the minor detail is that the crew gets little or no sleep.
This time, there were consequences to such poor scheduling practices.
> The sole survivor is blaming God,
Well, one coudl argue that if God did create the universe and free will and predestinantion and Satan and all the rest, then *ultimately* he's responsible.
> and his firsthand account is the only one we have.
I'm sure some psychics will show up to proclaim that the Ascended Masters From Atlantis shot the plane down with their Oooo-ray.
Right now I'm betting on major pilot error.
'Ladies and Gentleman, please fasten your seat belts, your in for one hell of a ride.'
Good article. Thanks for posting. Thanks to all contributors to this thread.
The amazing part of that story is that the KLM pilot at fault, Capt. VanZanten, was a senior training pilot and had even been featured in KLM print ads.
"The sole survivor is blaming God, "
What makes anyone believe that he is blaming God for the crash? Why couldn't he be saying why did God let me live and the others die? People too often jump to conclusions too fast and try to write their own feeling into a story.
The first thing the pilot should have done after he was lined up on the runway was check his compass heading. It would have shown he was at 260 degrees and not the 220 degress he should have been at. That would have immediately tipped him off that he was on the wrong runway.
"As a Civil Air Patrol mission pilot (Search and Rescue pilot) it bewilders me why that commercial craft crossed a lighted runway and selected the dark runway. Makes no logic."
They never even reached that runway, so there is no way they could cross it. Sounds like you would have made a mistake yourself! They were clearly confused by the new taxi pattern which place them first at the end of the short runway. In the past they taxied directly to the end of the long runway. If they had been paying more attention, they would have realized the recent changes required them to pass the short runway to reach the long runway.
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