By JEFFREY McMURRAY, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago
LEXINGTON, Ky. - A Comair flight carrying 50 people crashed a mile from Lexington's airport Sunday morning shortly after takeoff, the Federal Aviation Administration said. At least one person survived.
Comair Flight 5191, a CRJ-200 regional jet with 47 passengers and three crew members, crashed at 6:07 a.m. after taking off for Atlanta, said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Comair jet carrying about 50 people crashed on Sunday shortly after takeoff in Lexington, Kentucky, killing dozens of people, and media reports said one person survived.
"Our preliminary report was 50 fatalities," Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said. "The plane holds 50 but if there was someone in the jump seat, it would hold 51."
Local television stations reported one person survived the crash and was taken to a hospital.
A Comair spokeswoman said the CRJ-100 plane, flight 5191, left Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, bound for Atlanta. The FAA said it went down in woods at about 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT), approximately a mile (1.5 km) from the airport, and burst into flames.
There was no early indication of what caused the crash.
Comair, a regional carrier based in Cincinnati, is a unit of Delta Air Lines Inc.
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Light travels faster than sound...thats why people appear bright, until you hear them talk!
By JEFFREY McMURRAY, Associated Press Writer 51 minutes ago
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Investigators probing the fiery crash of Comair Flight 5191 want to know why it tried to take off from a runway considered far too short for commercial passenger planes. All but one of the 50 people aboard died.
Although Blue Grass Airport's main runway is 7,000 feet, for some reason the plane departed Sunday from the 3,500-foot general aviation runway. The twin-engine CRJ-100 would have needed 5,000 feet to fully get off the ground, aviation experts said.
There also were clues for the pilot: Signs marking the right way. Less lighting. And severely cracked concrete — not the type of surface typically found on runways for commercial routes.
The red circle is the crash-site and the blue runway marked is from where the Delta (Comair) Flight took off though officials say that the runway was quite small for the CRJ
The lone survivor happens to be the First Officer
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Light travels faster than sound...thats why people appear bright, until you hear them talk!
By JEFFREY McMURRAY, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 59 minutes ago
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Investigators say it only took a moment: The lone traffic controller at Blue Grass Airport cleared a flight for takeoff, then turned his back to handle administrative work.
What the controller didn't see, a federal investigator said, was the Atlanta-bound jet heading down the wrong runway.