[trthskr]

With regards to weather: the WLEX-TV station replay of weather through the time of the accident showed a "cell" of rain that passed across the end of the runway about the time of take-off. ~ 6:06-6:08 am. The weather reporter characterized the cell as "collapsing" with some reference to the likelihood of downdrafts. The center of the cell crossed Keeneland race track, not the end of the runway. The point may be moot. A photo in this morning's Lexington Herald showed the path of the plane through the top of the chain link fence off the end of the runway. Beyond that was the first row of trees...several limbs of ~12-14" were sheared off (12-16' above the ground).

[Florida524]

I think you all might be on the wrong track here. The weather was irrelevant in this case. The time of day (dawn), wrong runway (associated with the poor airport design), aircraft weight for runway length, and failure of any party to break the "chain" of events that caused this accident, not the weather. The FAA needs the blame on this too, because clearances prior to an aircraft holding short to the runway on which it is intending on taking off needs to stop.

[Painful]

Very good observation and comment. Those official weather observations simply represent the latest weather at the time of the observation--- and not the weather at the time the airplane actually took off. So if what WLEX-TV said is true, then the weather could've possibly distracted the flight crew from taking off from the correct runway. For as much as we like to speculate, I have no doubt there were several links in the chain that caused this incident.