Runway confusion may have led to crash

Published 9:00 pm Monday, August 28, 2006

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Investigators in the Comair jet crash that killed 49 people are looking into whether changes made to a taxiway during a repaving project a week ago confused the pilot and caused him to turn onto the wrong runway.

Federal aviation officials said Monday they were also looking at such things as runway lights, markings and signs for clues to what could have misled the pilots, as well as anything else that changed the configuration or appearance of the airport.

Both the old and new taxiway routes cross over the short runway where Flight 5191 tried to take off before crashing into a grassy field and bursting into flame, Airport Executive Director Michael Gobb told The Associated Press.

“It’s slightly different than it used to be,” said Charlie Monette, president of Aero-Tech flight school at the airport. “Could there have been some confusion associated with that? That’s certainly a possibility.”

It was unclear whether the Comair pilots had been to the airport since the changes to the taxi route.

Lowell Wiley, a flight instructor who flies almost every day out Lexington, said in an interview that he was confused by the redirected taxi route when he was with a student Friday taking off from the main runway.

“When we taxied out, we did not expect to see a barrier strung across the old taxiway,” Wiley said. “It was a total surprise.”

Investigators planned to use a high truck to simulate the pilots’ view of the runways and taxiways in their efforts to determine why the jet turned onto a shorter runway before dawn Sunday. The lone survivor was a critically injured co-pilot who was pulled from the cracked cockpit.

The bodies of the 49 victims were taken to the medical examiner’s office in Frankfort for autopsies. Kentucky’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Tracy Corey, was uncertain how long it will take to identify all the victims. Comair had not released a passenger manifest and said it was seeking permission from victims’ families to release the names.

The only survivor, first officer James Polehinke, remained in critical condition Monday at the University of Kentucky Hospital. Police officer Bryan Jared burned his own arms reaching into the broken cockpit to pull him out.