But even given the claim that an inactive runway’s lights were illuminated, I’ve got a hard time understanding how any pilot – and co-pilot – could take off on a runway heading 40 degrees off from that for which they were cleared.
Especially if it’s dark, you check the runway heading against the compass. You’re taught this on your first flight. You do it on your last.
I don’t get it.
Usually death in a plane crash is pretty instantaneous, but to die in a post crash fire trapped in an otherwise intact plane.. (shudders)
A Big salute to Bryan Jared and his fellow police officers who risked their lives to help and got the co-pilot out.
Well, some people can attempt to land without lowering their gear, others ignore their fuel gauges, some collisions at sea occur in broad daylight in clear weather because some one assumed exactly the wrong thing…
Reading the Navy Safety Center reports used to be an eye-opening experience in learning about how many creative ways sailors could get into trouble with simple tools.
Routine and assumptions can be deadly.
Wasn’t anybody in the tower watching? Don’t they share some responsibility here?
Assumptions again, probably.
Carelessness. Pure and simple. 260 people paid with their lives because some guy who didn’t have his head in the game tried to land on the wrong stinkin’ run way. Maybe I’m being too judgemental because I don’t have ALL the details, but it seems pretty cut and dry. The guys up front apparently didnt show up for work when they took off. I’m not sure but that seems like a check list item. Checking the compass. And showing up.
“Trying not to be judgmental”?
“Trying not to be judgmental”…..And then you rush to judgment? Oh, for shame!
It is a rare pilot indeed who will not admit to occasionally becoming disoriented while taxiing in the darkness, at a strange airport. And it is a rare pilot indeed, who has never made what could have been a fatal mistake if it had not been caught early, or had occurred under more difficult circumstances.
Eagle1 is right on, and NSC reports historically and repeatedly expose astonishing human, pilot frailty. It happens, and it happens a lot. It even sometimes happens to the very best pilots.
Landing at the wrong airport happens, for both military and civilian pilots. Landing on the wrong runway, perhaps even more. Taking off on the wrong runway, I suspect happens more than we know…fortunately, until now, without incident.
I have known Navy pilots who tried to take off with their wings still folded. I knew one who lined up on the runway edge lights, thinking they were centerline lights – he hit the A-gear machinery on the runway’s edge on takeoff roll. I even witnessed a night carrier air-wing recovery, 180 degrees out. They had marshaled off the bow of the ship instead of the stern! It was never caught by the many observers in authority, until the recovery was well under way. I even once witnessed a live combat air strike unintentionally destined for the “wrong country” due to a large compass error, one that many aboard ship or in the air did not initially notice.
And didn’t you recently post something about a bombing run of yours at Fallon, when your run-in was 180 degrees out? (Granted, 180 degree errors or more common than 40 degree errors.)
While early indications may point to basic, and normally unforgivable pilot error, I will still reserve judgment. I would like to know their flying schedule – how much sleep they had? Were they fatigued? What was the taxiway and runway lighting? Was there a distraction? Were any lights out? Was the captain involved in divorce proceedings/flu-bug/was his wife pregnant, etc? Were they under pressure for schedule? What were company procedures/relations/influence? Wx? Couldn’t they still become airborne, fly even with the shortened runway? Was something else involved? Was the Tower asleep? Etc, etc, etc.
Certainly mistakes were made somewhere. But I will withhold judgment, while adding the passengers, crew, and families to my prayers tonight. I recommend all others do too.
well said, fliterman
Gotta admit my reaction was just like Lex’s – didn’t anyone in the cockpit crosscheck runway heading with the compass? What a stupid error.
And just as quickly fliterman brough me out of my one-track-mindedness.
6 AM on a Sunday morning…figure that lots of folks were going through the motions at that time. My prayers go out to the families of those who died and to the co-pilot, who (if he lives) will have quite a lot to deal with.
Of course we feel horrible about those who lost their lives, which is why I feel so angry at the crew. I suppose it is a rush to judgement, but the facts seem pretty straightforward: The crew took off on the wrong runway, one too short for their aircraft and 49 people paid for that error with their lives. The possible reasons you cite are “causal factors,” but by no means are they excuses.
This is what the crew pretty much gets paid to do, take off and land, and stand ready to deal with any emergencies that might crop up in between. If a guy’s not ready to fly, then he should take himself out of the game until he is.
Gotta agree with Lex on this one, when you’re on the pointy-end of a long metal tube with X-number of souls behind you, anything less than your best is not enough. Typically the NTSB report on this incident will be issued a year or more from now, when most people have forgotten what occurred. If you look at the stats, you will note that most fatal commercial crashes involve “commuters” rather than major carriers and it’s my belief that the regulatory agencies should act sooner rather than later in these instances.
Filterman, if a surgeon botched a procedure that took the life of a loved one, would we be concerned about the amount of sleep he had, how compressed his schedule was, or if his karma was at a high or low? There are some occupations so critical that it requires your “A” Game to be the norm.
There is absolutely NO excuse for this having happened! NONE!
To pilots: Get it together! 6 AM or 6 PM, NO MATTER! Life’s a bitch for everyone, so buck up and fly right.
BTW, I am 25+ years avionics maintenance for DAL. MANY 20+ hour days on the job. YOU JUST GET IT RIGHT!! NO EXCUSES!!
Just as I hit the “send” key my eyes fell upon a plaque on my wall that I’ve had since my first “solo”…many moons ago:
“Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”
Folks, nothing that fliterman said excused what happened. The cockpit crew, especially the PIC [pilot in command] always have the final responsibility for flight safety.
Having said that, yes–crew rest IS an issue. In a military flying environment there are multiple checks against this kind of hazard and the complacency it causes. In smaller commercial carriers with less oversight [no nearby flight surgeon] and intense schedule pressure, checklist items get missed, and the accident chain gets long enough that something of this magnitude will happen. Unless it is stopped by effective supervision within a culture of accountability.
Flight safety isn’t willpower. Its training, currency, standards. Rinse, repeat.
“We are being paid to avoid hazard, but there are still many unexplored crevasses in our reservoir of knowledge. Our zeal for air transport is always soured when we so easily reflect on failures involving certain late comrades, who proved in the final analysis, to be, like ourselves, only the tip of the arrow. We are obliged to recognize our possible epitaph-His end was abrupt.”
-Earnest K. Gann
There is little question that egregious pilot error is at play here…but there is a HUGE question Why?.
Cpt J’s inferred characterization of Comair as one a family of “smaller commercial carriers” is not an accurate one.
Comair, along with other “regionals” such as American Eagle, and Express Jet (Continental express) are among the world’s largest airline operations operating jet equipment as sophisticated as any. They have the same training procedures as comprehensive as those found at the “mainline” airlines. These are not grass strip, in the back of the FBO operations that Britt and Henson-and in this case, the Meullers- started up decades ago.
So how did a fully qualified crew, steeped in the tenents of CRM, operating a modern air transport category aircraft equipped with a flight management system as good as it gets, end up in smoking wreckage off the end of a wrong runway?
Stopping at a conclusion of tragically stupid pilot error may not get to the heart of the matter in this so sad accident…
Good discussion on this one?
Good discussion on this one…
(wild speculation editor on)
I’m guessing they got clearance to take off from R22 prior to actually being lined up on R22 since there was nobody else on the field at the time. And they probably “confirmed” that runway heading cross-checked with A/C heading indicators before actually taking the runway, finished their checks and did a “roll and go” right off the taxiway, only they turned onto R26 instead of R22.
But even then, the sight picture should’ve been enough to clue them in pretty fast that there was something wrong with their situation. What about the boards? Didn’t they see a board almost immediately telling them they were about to run out of runway? I mean on the takeoff roll for a 3500 foot runway, wouldn’t the first board you see say 3? Or even 2? How did they miss that?
(wild speculation editor off)
As for blame, excuses, etc…of course there is no excuse for the kind of error that allows 49 people to burn to death. But the only survivor you have right now is the co-pilot – who burned with the other victims and has to (maybe) live with the mistakes that were made in that cockpit. No matter what you do or say, people are people and bad decisions will be made, even with the best of intentions…look at what happens on end-of-cruise flyoffs. The most senior, experienced aviators in the wing are flying, and we all know what kind of decisions are made on those occasions.
I’m curious about what people here think the victim’s families deserve from the carrier and other parties who are about to get sued.
Shipmates,
Reports from the airport today reveal that the taxi procedure was changed last week due to repaving of the taxiways. The investigators are trying to determine if this crew had been flying out of their previously. They also revealed that Comair only flys this route on weekends, and that the 0600 departure during the week is handled by another commuter airline.
Seems to me that, as in so many other accidents, complacency will play a large role. The crew was very familiar with the type of aircraft, and had been flying together for a couple years or more. It was the daily 0600 run to Atlanta. Commuter hop. Flown every day from the same airport.
Early hours, light rain, still dark. Change in taxiway and procedures. Interesting also that the airport says that the lights on R26 were NOT illuminated. The airport also claims that the tower was in communication the whole time with the crew, and discussing R22, which they should have been using.
Complacency, more than anything else, will kill you. It’s the one thing I always worried about. Doing things the same way, getting comfortable, getting lazy. Assuming someone else checked the yellow sheets. Believing that, if I didn’t catch it, then someone else would, and there wouldn’t be a problem. Assuming the gear was down. Assuming all the pins and plugs and covers were removed. Assuming the flaps were set because you called for them… it all get’s to be routine, until it catches up to you.
It’s sad, but again, when we become complacent, reality has a serious b*tch-slap just waiting to bring you back around. Situational awareness.
Respects,
AW1 Tim
Sid, thanks for clarifying Comair’s status as a regional carrier.
The point I was making was that a military environment tends to monitor it’s aircrews’ health more closely with multiple disinterested parties than some civilian air carriers do. Not an absolute, just an observation. A civilian ATP crew has to meet a demanding time schedule, whereas military operations involve demanding time AND task schedules, that are rarely exactly the same twice. There’s also a difference between being a member of a close-knit squadron, and a free agent plugging into a hub.
Complacency is a hazard to all aircrews, but the military and larger airlines have a support staff-STANEVAL-checkpilot safety infrastructure deep enough in personnel and experience to identify and correct bad trends before they become Class A accidents.
The regionals certainly operate as “mainline” carriers, but do they have a self-correcting safety culture? That’s what I meant by “smaller commerical carrier”.
This was a some-what local accident, since I’m a Cincinnati girl and the crew was a CVG crew. I think that will have some bearing as well. I know Lexington isn’t too far from Cinci, so it’s possible that the crew was familiar with Lexington and just made a mistake. I’m thinking, however, that they weren’t used to the airport. To have the Pilot, Co-Pilot and Attendant ALL from Cincinnati suburbs (granted, they are in Kentucky, but we’re on the river) would indicate to me that this crew was CVG based.
Secondly, I don’t see how they made the mistake of turning in the middle of getting to 26. The noon press conference indicated that EVERY conversation between the cockpit and the control tower discussed 26- 22 was never in the picture.
Third, it was dark…. and they’re human. Humans make mistakes, often with deadly consequences.
Fourth, the only survivor was the co-pilot- and I thank GOD I’m not him. Could you imagine the survivor guilt, not to mention the physical recovery he faces?
Fifth, did you guys see the “Lost” spoof Conan did at the opening of the Emmy’s? TOTALLY TASTELESS.
This whole thing has me sad and angry.
“I?
“I’m guessing they got clearance to take off from R22 prior to actually being lined up on R22 since there was nobody else on the field at the time.”
At a small airport like LEX that time of the morning that would have been so. The controller probably turned his attention to the other airline flights fixing to depart. Unless the flight was going to cross another active (in this case there was none), then the controller was done with them.
With runway incursions getting alot of focus in recent years…
http://www.airlinesafety.com/editorials/RunwayIncursions.htm
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/ro/nacc/meetings/2002namcarsamrwy/02-NTSBBillEnglishPresentation.pps
…its a recurring training topic in most shops these days.
“What about the boards? Didn’t they see a board almost immediately telling them they were about to run out of runway?”
You wont find boards on most civil runways. And I will opine this “chain” was running freely with the red marked last shots whizzing by with no chance of stopping them once the aircraft turned off the taxiway….
Here is the view down LEX RWY 26(fully understanding it wasn’t fully daylight at the time of the accident)…
http://www.airliners.net/uf/view.file?id=536918217&filename=1156783224wRbLEQ.jpg
http://www.pprune.org/forums/
Click over to the Kentucky crash thread.
This is what the professional ATP community in Europe are thinking.
Interesting perspective.
Carp.
Correct that… every radio transmission indicated RWY 22, not 26, which is the one they took off from.
Point being, the controller and the flight crew were on the same page.. but the wrong runway the whole time. Well, not really- they had to turn to get onto the wrong one. I wonder if it was like a “y” intersection which made it easier for them to turn onto 26.
CptJ, I might add the “regional” is a bit of a misnomer as well. The DOT classifies Comair as a “Major” airline…
http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_information/accounting_and_reporting_directives/number_276.html
Also Comair, along with the rest of the industry has fully bought into a self correcting safety culture. This is true from the government side, but also the company and union sides as well…
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/main_nf.htm
http://www.alpa.org/DesktopModules/ALPA_Documents/ALPA_DocumentsView.aspx?itemid=3117&ModuleId=3052&Tabid=256#search=%22ASAP%20foqa%22
That said, sure looks like there was more than just simple pilot error afoot in this particular cockpit.
AF Sister, COMAIR operates what is called a “hub and spoke” route structure:
http://www.comair.com/maps/system/
…with “out and backs” to and from their 3 hubs of CVG ATL and MCO. In very little time at all, line pilots will have found themselves at all the airports in the system. Pilots are assigned to “crew bases” -which in Comair’s case are the three hubs- where they will begin and end their “trips”
A trip is where a flight crew is paired up for a series of flights over a several day period that consitiutes their duty time. Each member is expected to “show” at the crew base at the designated time. Most “commute” in from other locales. In this case the first officer lived in Margate Florida (and given his age, may well have been furloughed from Delta).
Flight crew duty time is closely controlled as there are FAA and union mandated maximum duty times and minimum crew rest periods that are broken down into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly increments. Add in currency requirements for training and whatnot, and you can quickly see that airline crew management is a highly complex evolution.
Of note in this accident, I have heard that this crew may have been working what’s known as a “highspeed” or “standup” schedule. This is where a crew will typically fly a late night flight into an outstation, and even though be given a hotel room until the flight the next morning, they are technically on duty the entire period. They will then bring the morning flight into the hub and are “off duty” at that point. This is a way to run a late flight into a station and get the aircraft out on the next morning flight -which leaves before the minimum “off duty” time interval for that inbound crew- by using only one flight crew. Use of a “highspeed” schedule has been brought up before as a fatigue factor and tends to be a contentious union issue.
Its not uncommon for the captain and first officer to have never met until saddling up in the cockpit on the first day of a trip. This is why doctrine and adherence to procedure such as following checklists is so important in the airline environment. It is somewhere within this framework that things started to go bad in that cockpit.
There is more than enough blame in this tragedy. ManlyDad hit it on the head too, the controllers are a VERY STRONG contributing factor here.
Thanks, Sid. I appreciate your insight. Nothing more has been released here locally, but I’ll add new info in comments.
The new local headline story is one that has been going on for a couple of weeks now- an autistic 3 year old foster child disappeared on August 15th. His foster parents have now confessed to leaving him locked in a closet for 2 days while they attended a family reunion hundreds of miles away. This has been a tragic, tragic, tragic couple of days around Cincinnati.
Sid, this is great background.
One would assume COMAIR uses simulators to orient crews to the approaches they’ll be flying into their hubs. A commenter on the PPRUNE forum wondered if there was a dip in R26 that would make it appear from that cockpit’s vantagepoint to be longer than it actually was, thus creating the visual illusion of the longer R22.
If you see what you expect to see, after the grogginess of a “highspeed” layover, you could get behind the aircraft, and never catch up.
Running a max weight takeoff simulation from that model’s cockpit on both runways would be illuminating.
Somebody on airliners.net found this “NASA Report”
Time / Day
Date : 199311
Local Time Of Day : 0601 To 1200
Day : Sat
Place
Locale Reference.Airport : LEX
State Reference : KY
Altitude.AGL.Bound Upper : 0
Altitude.AGL.Bound Lower : 0
Environment
Flight Conditions : Marginal
Light : Daylight
Aircraft : 1
Controlling Facilities.Tower : LEX
Operator.Common Carrier : Air Carrier
Make Model Name : Medium Large Transport, Low Wing, 2 Turbojet Eng
Flight Phase.Ground : Holding
Flight Plan : IFR
Person : 1
Affiliation.Company : Air Carrier
Function.Flight Crew : First Officer
Qualification.Pilot : ATP
Experience.Flight Time.Last 90 Days : 100
Experience.Flight Time.Total : 3500
Experience.Flight Time.Type : 50
ASRS Report : 256788
Person : 2
Affiliation.Company : Air Carrier
Function.Flight Crew : Captain
Function.Oversight : PIC
Qualification.Pilot : ATP
Events
Anomaly.Incursion : Runway
Anomaly.Other Anomaly.Other
Anomaly.Non Adherence : Clearance
Independent Detector.Other.ControllerA
Resolutory Action.Other
Resolutory Action.Flight Crew : Returned to Intended Course or Assigned Course
Assessments
Primary Problem : Flight Crew Human Performance
Air Traffic Incident : Pilot Deviation
Narrative
ACFT WAS CLRED FOR IMMEDIATE TKOF (TFC INSIDE THE MARKER) ON RWY 22. WE TAXIED ONTO RWY AND TOLD TWR WE NEEDED A MOMENT TO CHK OUR DEP ROUTING WITH OUR WX RADAR (STORMS IN THE AREA, RAINING AT THE ARPT). WE REALIZED OUR HDG WAS NOT CORRECT FOR ASSIGNED RWY AND AT THAT MOMENT TWR CALLED US TO CANCEL TKOF CLRNC BECAUSE WE WERE LINED UP ON RWY 26. WE TAXIED CLR AND HELD SHORT OF RWY 22 FOR LNDG TFC. WE TOOK OFF ON RWY 22 AND PROCEEDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS WERE POOR VISIBILITY AND WX (RAIN), CONFUSING RWY INTXN AND TWR’S REQUEST FOR AN IMMEDIATE TKOF. SUGGEST POSSIBLE WARNING PAGE (SIMILAR TO HOUSTON HOBBY) TO CLARIFY MULTIPLE RWY ENDS.
Synopsis
FLC OF AN MLG ACR ACFT INADVERTENTLY TAXIED INTO POS FOR TKOF ON THE WRONG RWY.
What remains to be seen is if this flight was cleared for an intersection takeoff like the one above…
Also, regarding the airlines’ safety culture, the positive impact that CRM – Crew Resource Management – has had in airline cockpits over the last decade cannot be overstated.
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/HomePage/Group/HelmreichLAB/Publications/pubfiles/Pub235.pdf#search=%22crew%20resource%20management%22
As a civil flier, I’m at a loss as to how they could miss the lack of precision instrument approach lighting and markings, as well as centerline lights used on runways that they would be accustomed to. The first time I landed on a runway with centerline lights, it felt like I had just plopped down on the strip at Vegas. RW22 had no centerline lights (if they were even on — as mentioned above that they weren’t).
Check out the facilities: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLEX
One side note: even if the lights for R22 were on, the Runway End Identifier Lights appear to be out of service, indefinitely. Would have made it even harder to notice the shortness of the runway before it was too late.
Here’s the FAA airport diagram: http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0608/00697AD.PDF
From the terminal, you have to taxi through the end of R22 to get to R26. As mentioned above, there was probably little traffic at 6:00am, and they were probably cleared for take-off while taxing enroute and they probably rolled onto R22 and applied the juice immediately. The tower might have had 5 seconds to glance out and determine it was the wrong runway before the illusions of lights at night play games with the eye and make a sight picture that one could perceive to be a light moving down (or flying off of) the correct runway. The tower is there to give directions so that no two pieces of aluminum touch each other. It’s the pilots responsibility to speak up if they are unfamiliar and need further assistance carrying out those instructions. I see no reason why any finger should be pointing blame at the tower for “allowing” this to happen.
~john
All I know for certain about this accident is that the mother of one of our FBO refuelers was onboard, and she was not the First Officer.A tragedy to be sure.
What is weird is that pretty much every airport I’ve flown out of I remember seeing these big yellow boxes, illuminated at night, that have the runway (or taxiway) identifier on them….
How do you miss that?
“look at what happens on end-of-cruise flyoffs. The most senior, experienced aviators in the wing are flying, and we all know what kind of decisions are made on those occasions.”
?????
Ima – senior folks sometimes make marginal calls on rebuilt birds at the end of a deployment in order to get them all home, and not have to suffer the indignity of 1) failing to salvage a hangar queen, and 2) forcing a crane-off.
The fact that there are so very few subsequent mishaps may or may not be attibuted to a) the inherently conservative safety margins built into normal operations, and b) the skill and wisdom of the crews so “entrusted.”
For everyone else, thanks for a very enlightening comment thread. This is one of those times that we’ve done it as well or better than anyone else.
BZ.
Greg- Please pass along our condolences. I’m sure we would ALL like your refueler to know we’re so sorry for the loss.
sad, sad, sad.
The Cincinnati Enquirer today is reporting that the pilot was detail-oriented to a fault… normally. What a shame.
Interesting take (assuming its veracity-and it looks legit to me) from a CRJ driver on airliners.net:
http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/2960026/
Quoting VS239 (Reply 41):
A huge difference from 220 degrees if using rwy 22.
Not on the CRJ it’s not. The HSI gives you over 210 degrees of view in a tiny window. When you’re making the turn onto the runway, completing the takeoff checklist, it’s not that big a difference.
I’ve operated the CRJ out of KLEX many times in my career. I used to fly it for a different airline. I can vividly remember that area of the airport being very confusing. I can remember one time doing the takeoff brief and taxi checklist while taxiing out and seeing the hold short line for 26 and thinking that I had already crossed it and was holding short of 22. Upon stopping and noticing that something was amiss, I checked my airport diagram and realized that I wasn’t where I thought I was. Further compounding this is the fact the KLEX tower has a habit of clearing you for takeoff on 22 before you ever reach runway 26. That intersection of taxiway A and 26 is much wider than the surrounding taxiways. The red runway threshold identification signs are for 26 are spread out quite a ways from the taxiway making them difficult to see.
The barbi-fun jet, aka CRJ, does have ground visibility issues. It sits rather low and can make vision of taxiways and signs difficult at times. The taxi/recog lights are at the wing root which is better than 40 feet behind the pilots. These things are pretty dim at night and totally useless if the surface is wet. Somebody stated that the pilots should have known that runway 22 had been repaved and that 26 was not freshly paved. It was wet and raining, all surfaces look freshly paved when they are wet. They are nice and shiney.
Another thing, I’m getting long winded I know, is that this new taxi route is just ‘plane’ bad. It requires a left turn following a short straight away that came after a short left turn. If you back up 1 short left turn, that puts you making your 90 degree left turn onto runway 26 instead of 22 (yes I know the turn is slightly more than 90 degrees for the flamers). When I saw this my jaw hit the table. That turn is totally unacceptable and combined with the fact that the rest of A had construction lights on it that look just like terminating bars when viewed in the rain…..well, it just sets up disaster.
I feel bad for the passengers and crew of this flight. The pilots messed up, no doubt there. They had an enormous amount of help in making their mistake from outside of that cockpit. God rest the soles of those who perished and I have total confidence that the NTSB will get to the bottom of this and making sweeping change recommendations.
USER PROFILE SEND INSTANT MSG A
Aw… hell.
Earlier I said that I hoped the surviving co-pilot wasn’t the one flying the plane on takeoff. Well… the NTSB is saying that he WAS.
“The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday night that first officer Polehinke was flying the plane. Polehinke, who survived the crash, was in critical condition Monday at University of Kentucky Hospital.
Even though Clay did not have the flight controls, as captain, he was in command and was monitoring the flight systems on takeoff.”
source: http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20060829/NEWS0103/608290357
Damn..
Just. Damn.
Anyone know if there were distance remaining markers on R26?
And if so… (or if not assuming they are on 22) wouldn’t this be a major indicator to the “Non-flying” captain who is responsible for RTO calls, V1 etc…?
“S” Friggin’ “A” !!!!!!
Shocked at all by the mishap, but after all these years ..well you know. I’ve read all of the above with interest. Good thinking.
Something interesting making the rounds re the mishap inside:
“Subject: lexington disaster –a pilot’s view
Aviation disaster –a pilot’s view
I live in Lexington and have thirty years of airline experience flying in and out of LEX. I was also the station liaison for Lexington for ten years .
Here is what I think happened:
The two runways in question share the same common run-up area. The extended taxiway to the correct runway, runway 28 was closed due to construction. It has always been difficult to tell between the two runways when you are taxiing out. The natural thing to do is to take the wrong one. It is just there and you are always tempted to take it. When I flew out of LEX we always checked each other at least three times to make sure we were taking the correct runway. We checked the chart, we checked to make sure the correct runway number was at the end and we always double checked the FMS generated moving map.
Most FMS systems will have a warning called “runway dissimilarity” pop up in magenta when your position at takeoff doesn’t match the runway you programmed into the computer. This would not happen at LEX since you are virtually in the same spot when you take either runway.
It was also raining at the time of takeoff and dark. The control tower opens at 6am (because we are, after all, it is all about saving money) and only has one controller on duty at that time. He or she has to: run ground control, clearance delivery, approach control and departure control. The one controller also has to program the ATIS and make the coffee. He or she probably cleared COMAIR to take off and then put their head back down to do a chore or work another airplane.
Taking the runway, the COMAIR guy would put the power up and wouldn’t realize they were on the wrong runway until they were about 70% down the pike. Too late to safely abort so he probably decided to try and continue the takeoff.
his is when the eye witnesses heard a series of explosions and though the plane blew up in the air. Didn’t happen — what they heard and saw were compressor stalls of probably both engines. The pilot no doubt pushed the throttles all the way up and that demand to the engines combined with the steep pitch attitude cut off enough air to the intakes to cause the compressor stalls — which, by the way, made them even more doomed. Less power.
They stalled or simply hit one of the large hills to the west of the airport and came to a stop. Everybody on board was probably injured but alive. Then, a second or two later the post-crash fire began. With the darkness and the fact that most of them had broken legs, pelvises and backs they literally burned alive. Not smoke inhalation. They really actually burned to death.
In my role as station liaison I wrote most of the post crash safety procedure for Delta at that field. Too bad there weren’t enough survivors to use them.
BTW, COMAIR and the press will tell you what a great plane the RJ is. This is a total lie. The Canadair RJ was designed to be an executive barge, not an airliner. They were designed to fly about ten times a month, not ten times a day. They have a long history of mechanical design shortfalls. I’ve flown on it and have piloted it. It is a steaming, underpowered piece of shit. It never had enough power to get out of its own way and this situation is exactly what everybody who flies it was afraid of.
The senior member of the crew had about five and a half years of total jet experience. The copilot less. They had minimum training (to save money — enjoy that discount ticket!) and were flying a minimally equipped p.o.s. on very short rest. The layover gets in about 10pm the night before. They report for pick-up at 4:30am.
I’m sorry if I sound bitter but this is exactly the direction the entire airline industry is going. Expect to see bigger more colorful crashes in the future. Email me if you need an off the record so-called expert. I have 20,000 of heavy jet flying time and am type rated in the 727, 757, 767, 777, DC-8, DC-9 and L-1011.
It is not for the faint hearted. I don’t know the author.
And, please don’t shoot me…I’m only the messenger.
Len
First an intro…
A pretty simple formula here:
* Extraordinarily poor pay, working conditions & benefits at Comair =
minimally qualified & inexperienced pilots are hired.
(who else is going to do the job anymore with crappy pay and no
pensions…certainly no more incentive for military pilots to leave early to
fly for an airline, when you can stay in the military and make similar
senior-pilot pay and still get a lifetime pension and medical benefits.
Likewise, what pilot students’ want to go to Embry-Riddle University and
spend $200,000+ getting a degree and learning to fly, only to go get a
shitty job after graduation? Pay at the commuters starts at $1,800/month
and tops out at $50K-60K/year after 12 years with no pension…you can
almost make that at a fast food restaurant. Pilots are quitting in droves
for better careers elsewhere…even the senior guys…as you know I quit
early because they terminated our pensions and medical benefits…and I
wasn’t the only one)
* Inadequate scheduled overnight rest = fatigue
* Inexperienced crew + fatigue = accidents”
B2
“Anyone know if there were distance remaining markers on R26″
No boards on that runway. Been looking to see what the requirements are, but you won’t see them except on the larger civil runways.
I will have to call “Len” on a couple of points. To be frank, it appears he may have a bit of an agenda due to the increasing use of RJs on domestic routes once flown by the “mainlines”:
While the CRJ was a biz jet that was forced fit into an airliner (which explains the awkward window height), the relaibility problems have been worked through. Can’t speak to the power issue as I have my RJ experience has been with Embraers which don’t seem to be.
His statement that the CRJ is a, ” a minimally equipped p.o.s.”, is simply wrong. The avionics suite in that aircraft is on a par with those in the Boeing widebodies he has flown:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0239069/M/
Indeed, if sophistication is an issue in this accident, its because too much of it caused the crew to forget the basics.
The abysmal pay is correct. So is the steep cost of entry into a “regional” cockpit(just ask the Embry-Riddle intern working on the Jepps behind me as we speak). However, the training once at the airline is not by any stretch minimal, and “Len” is at best being disingenuous.
Now the Part 141 pilot track wherein a person can hit all the numbers in minimum time and never even encounter icing conditions (for instance) until on the line is another matter….
Fatigue. Still not sure if this crew was a “highspeed” or not, but whatever rest period they had was union mandated. So the union would have bought into whatever rules they followed.
ooops, I see “Len” was not the author. Apologies to Len.
On the issue of the motivation for Embry-Riddle (and the like-blieve the accident PIC was from Rutgers) grads to endure starvation wages at the regionals is largely due to the age 60 rule which forces “gummers” to leave revenue flying at 60 years old.
Guaranteed moveup-if a bit slow at times.
Also a simple axiom of airline life: Pay and quality of life are directly related to the number of seats on the equipment you work.
Sid,
I just thought it was interesting because of the authors obvious knowledge of the airfield. Not that I agreed with everything it said.. I’ll wait until the NTSB report comes out.
As far as the avionics on the MA…you make mucho sense. Also agree with the rest.
I’m with Lex..Doesn’t anybody look at the wet compass anymore?
B2