Crashed plane took off from wrong runway

mike · #1 08-28-2006, 03:54 PM

I saw this story in the news yesterday. I can't believe a pilot could take off from the wrong run way!

Quote:

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.

The 3,500-foot-long strip, with less lighting and barely half the length of the airport's main runway, is only intended for daylight takeoffs and not for commercial flights. The twin-engine CRJ-100 would have needed 5,000 feet to fully get off the ground, aviation experts said.

Turk · #2 08-31-2006, 01:31 AM

Apparently there was some recent runway/taxiway work done. The thing is, the FAA said today that they made a mistake by having only one controller in the tower. The report said that the controller had cleared the aircraft to taxi, then turned their back on the field view to do some administrative work while the aircraft approached the wrong runway and proceeded to takeoff. Had the controller kept their eye on the field, they would have seen the mistake and notified the pilot of the error. I'm presuming here, but I am guessing that since there was recent work that the taxi/runway markings may not heve been done correctly.

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