Why did Comair 5191 Crash at Lexington?

The American Thinker ^ | 9-8-06 | Dennis Sevakis

[Museum Twenty]

Very informative post.

Thank you for taking the time to write it.

[oldsalt]

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.

My son has flown CRJ's for another airline,and he said that he always lined up by putting a bezel or something like it on his compass to the right compass/runway setting and would know which way he was heading.

[Thommas]

number of controllers are to be present in a control tower under a given set of circumstances, it has no bearing on this accident.

Pilot error? No doubt. Would a controller watching the runway as the flight departed have saved 49 souls and millions of dollars in property damage? Probably.

The author of this piece is a pilot; I'm an air traffic controller, with almost 20 years as a tower controller. Depth perception, excellent vision and Full Performance Level status dictate that the tower (local) controller would have seen the aircraft on the wrong runway as it entered it. A controller with his back to the operation is not providing the service expected of this duty. Keep running the control operations as a business, the FAA model, and these little errors will occur more frequently. Run the control operations like the public service it was designed to be, and we will not hear of the next massive loss of life from lack of staffing.

[Concho]

The runways cross right at the north end. True, they would have come to the end of the short one (26)first, but it crosses the long one (22)a couple hundred feet from the threshold. From the first reports, the centerline lights on 22 were out, but the side lights were on, and there were no lights on 26.

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLEX

[eyedigress]

I had heard that the latest info on the airport were that there was a paving project on the main and the lights were supposed to be off. the lights were on that morning and runway info had not been updated to reflect that.

From the Louisville Courier Journal; "An alternate taxi route combined with other issues being studied – including whether the crew expected the lights on the main runway to be off, meaning they might not have noticed they were on the unlit short runway – could create problems", Feith said.
(former NTSB investigator)

[Concho]

Interesting. We dont get the Louisville Courier Journal out here in BFE, so I had not seen that. It still comes down to someone should have checked the DG and Compass to make sure that they were set properly and that they were on the correct runway. We never set the DG until we line up on the centerline. Being off 40 degrees should have screamed out at them, but I dont know what their proceedures are or whether they followed them and likely no one will ever know.
A year from now, the History channel will have a documentary which will tell us all about it./s

[par4]

There’s the blue taxiway lights. The white runway lights. The green runway threshold lights.

Green lights are centerline taxiway lights, blue are edge lights. The runway threshold lights aren't green, they're yellow or red, depending on where you're intersecting the runway.

[River_Wrangler]

My son has flown CRJ's for another airline,and he said that he always lined up by putting a bezel or something like it on his compass to the right compass/runway setting and would know which way he was heading.

I have always called it a "Heading Bug" but that is a common practice amongst us old timers.

[amakua]

"I'm a controller with 20 years..."

Yeah, well so am I, and I don't think you're considering the human factors argument so well laid out by the author of the article. I guarantee you, regardless of whether you're a highly paid FAA controller or a underpaid military controller, you are always one "transmission" away from a mishap. And this guy, with his 17 years experience working traffic at Blue Grass, was undoubtedly "complacent" with his duties, which unfortunately, is what tends to happen to us when we forget to be 'afraid'. And brother, it could happen to anyone of us.

"Frequency Change Approved - Good Day"

[LikeLight]

At airliners.net they have a report in the forum that one of the pilots erroneously announced the doomed flight's destination as "Toledo" before quickly correcting himself and saying "Atlanta" (the actual destination). This info was reported as being passed along by victims' families who had been briefed by the NTSB. Tends to support the theory that the pilots were tired or distracted or something.

[eyedigress]

Also reported they initially boarded the wrong aircraft.

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=37659

[southland]

I also am a retired Air Traffic Controller and former Air Force Pilot.
The law of averages and the chance that what could happen will eventually happen I have seen airline pilots land gear up at night and have seen all aspects of murphy's law and all manner of things happen.
I have seen very experienced pilots hit trees on instrument approach and experienced airline pilots land with not enough fuel to taxi to the ramp without notifying ATC Controllers of a problem.
Some times it is a real zoo out there.
Obviously murphys law is a real factor.Contact me for further info is needed.

[Kirkwood]

"but it crosses the long one (22)a couple hundred feet from the threshold"

More like 1000 feet. Look at the map.

Did the flight recorders catch the pilots saying anything about crossing a lighted runway? I haven't heard that report. You might think that one of them would have realized the mistake at the intersection, but apparently they didn't make the connection that they were on the short runway even then. Or if they did make the connection, they may have decided it was too late to abort. It is easy to imagine another 1000 feet passing by beyond the intersection with the lighted runway before they could process their mistake and make a decision. By then they were close to 2000 feet down the runway with no place to go but up.