The National Transportation Safety Board released the facts it has found in the August 2006 crash of Comair Flight 5191. The plane went down as it attempted to take off from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky., killing 49 people.
The only survivor was the jet's first officer, who was critically wounded.
The newly released information is not the final word on the accident — it is a collection of facts and data that the NTSB will use in writing its final report.
Comair flight 5191 took off on the wrong runway. The regional jet was supposed to use a 7,000-foot runway. Instead, it used a shorter runway half that long — and investigators have struggled to find out why.
Everything in the conversation between pilot Jeffrey Clay and co-pilot James Polehinke seemed routine. The captain said "all set" as he and the first officer completed their checklist. Then the captain said, "All yours, Jim," as he turned the controls over to the first officer.
Seconds later, the co-pilot noted it was "weird" that the air strip had no lights. The captain responded, "Yeah."
The last word on the transcript is the captain saying "Whoa," followed by the sound of the crash. The captain, flight attendant and all 47 passengers died. Only the first officer survived, but with severe injuries.
Peter Garrison, a contributing editor for Flying magazine, says the transcript also reveals something else: The crew used procedures that should have prevented the mistake that they made.
One possible factor, says Garrison, is that the pilots chatted about their jobs, wives, children, and dogs as they ran their regular checklists.
Garrison says one lesson pilots can take from this is that it's important to screen out all conversations that are not directly related to flight safety. That's what pilots call a "sterile cockpit."
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