Wrong runway?

[Donn]

Early indications are the Comair jet which crashed in Kentucky today, took a 3,400' runway instead of the intended 7,000' runway for it's takeoff. Apparently it never got off the ground. Crashed through the fence, and burst into flames, killing 49. The lone survivor, one of the pilots, is in critical condition.

[James River Rat]

Pilot apparently took off on the general aviation runway.

The short one on the google map:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=15&ll=38.034876,-84.599705&spn=0.024912,0.040255&t=k&om=1

How unfortunate.

Farmer was quoted as stating it crashed on his property.

[Rick Clark]

Bummer that had to happen.

[George Jung]

The main runway was resurfaced about a week ago, a spokesman for the airport said, and closed to all commercial and general aviation aircraft.

I read the NYTimes article; is this the '7000 foot' runway, the longer one this jet was supposed to use? Or was there yet another runway?
Human error, the usual culprit.

[erster]

Sound almost like the pilot had not had his morning coffee. Its also hard to believe that the local tower sent him on the short runway.

[S/V Laura Ellen]

Sound almost like the pilot had not had his morning coffee. Its also hard to believe that the local tower sent him on the short runway.

According to the "most trusted source for news":

1. The pilot had flown in near midnight the night before and the plane departed at approx. 06:00. Probably only a few hours of actual sleep.

2. The town had cleared the plane for the longer runway.

[Tristan]

Damn, all those folks dead because the pilot (and copilot?) made one little mistake. Didn't they regualrly take off from that airport?

[Gary E]

Dont they lable the runways in KY?
or are they like some of the road signs...

Damn shame...

[S/V Laura Ellen]

Damn, all those folks dead because the pilot (and copilot?) made one little mistake. Didn't they regualrly take off from that airport?

Accident investigations have shown that there are typically 3 or more mistakes that, although singly would not be fatal, when combined seal the fate of those involved.

[geeman]

Tha crash is very close to where my best friends daughter goes to school.I called to make sure all in the family was ok.My friend is a scientist of some sort that flies all over the country constantly ,I never know what plane he's on and where he's going.

[ahp]

I am not a pilot, but don't all runways have signs alongside of them indecating the number of feet remaining in 1000's? If so that should have been a warning.

[John of Phoenix]

It was at night in the rain. Yes runways and taxiways are clearly marked with all sorts of information, but clearly mistakes are made. In this case 26 would be the first turn, 22 the second. One small distraction in the cockpit is all it would take to make the first turn onto the wrong runway vs. the second turn onto the correct one. Frankly, their biggest clue should have been that 26 is an unlighted runway. The cockpit voice recorder will be very interesting on this one.

Note that the tower and the departure ends of 26 and 22 are almost in a straight line. Under the conditions of limited visibility, the tower controller might have a difficult time determining which runway a plane was set to depart from.

Very sad.

I remember several years ago, a 747 crashing while attempting a takeoff from a taxiway. Talk about a symphony of errors.

[geeman]

It looks to me like most of those people were killed by fire.I cant imagine what they went thru.My scientist friend that lives there says he doesnt wanna fly anymore ,he's very upset about it

[Leon m]

When I was a scout in the Army, we were flying in a C130 loaded with Armored personel carriers.We landed at an airport to refuel. after sitting there for an hour we were told that the runway was too short for take off. After sitting there for another hour we were told that we were going to go for it anyway. I remember looking out the window to see if we would actually lift off before we ran out of runway...we did ,but we damn near took the security fence with us ...just cleared it by inches.

Don't you think air control would let you know if the runway was too short before they let you land ?

[Tar Devil]

Don't you think air control would let you know if the runway was too short before they let you land ?

No. They aren't trained for that, it's not their job and they won't take on that responsibility.

Runway requirements vary depending on passenger and fuel load as well as airplane performance. Air Traffic Control doesn't have performance specs on airplanes.

The C-130 is capable of very short runway operations, depending on load. In all probability, the crew took on too much fuel for the runway length.

[John of Phoenix]

The string of mistakes begins to be seen.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Investigators are examining whether a runway repaving led the crew of Comair Flight 5191 to mistakenly take the shorter runway before crashing and killing 49 of 50 aboard, a federal investigator said Monday.

Also, the taxi route commercial planes take to get to the main runway at Lexington’s airport was altered a week before jet crashed after trying to leave from the wrong runway, Blue Grass Airport Executive Director Michael Gobb told The Associated Press.

Gobb declined to speculate about whether the taxiway change could have been a factor in the crash. The airport had been operating without incident for a week since a massive runway repaving project was completed the previous Sunday.

Gobb said the old taxi route was barricaded.

An aviation expert, Greg Feith, a former crash investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said such an alteration could cause confusion for the crew.

Any familiarity the crew had with the airport may have been moot because the normal taxiway was barricaded, said Feith.

An alternate taxi route combined with other issues being studied – including whether the crew expected the lights on the main runway to be off, meaning they might not have noticed they were on the unlit short runway – could create problems, he said.

They are also investigating whether the lights on 22 were on or not.

[Gary E]

Has anyone looked at the Lexington airport?

There seems to be 2 runways the longer one could be 22.. which I think if they still number them the same way that means the compass course is 220 when your lined up on it.... the other much shorter is maybe 26 or course 260... How can a pilot not know the difference?

Zoom in and go west on Versailles Rd accross Man O War Blvd to see the airport

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?ovi=1&zoom=7&mapdata=3B%2f%2b2cuPYhj3VhNRaOkM84wThwKoMto3cHByNQ ROZ08TOACRXJFCpT7JHNavDIIZznr25tPuCInsBANnebDmI9rQ JqkohyopAM27CG7ONtJ1KkpUQNM9It5q8d5IUQbwlmsDJ41Jyk 6uKbWvHC0%2bpEuOGqtuPAIl69LFYXpC771vR6CHBQ1IvXY0UM U0TeIzkn613GHCuZYYvdSm0iGSXQa5kmmiRZ0t4g7uHT0s8viF cvRzvCNMxuN0yJA4TyYDK1RJnAECoMFby%2fCxMqJYO%2b%2b8 MAVRNseRLA80PBOi3tltK6lidfaEUn7a6m6%2fhE9WtPaq9mFi mfP2LflFHVbow9TsSCs5x%2bzk5DNTS8dYQr868TYIIPCraIjI gaFsBWknYl5I7ghJu49Y4KAIC8xeFRLKvMwNskHvdJZTQwav%2 b%2bK%2fUx6gLdZZppLcbvrwdVBi2WX8VPsIyyPw1C92GKwDs6 KFweBChoCKioq3juJl6q7wlwlYBWGLuwT1zx1D1w3PENdwxIJB OzgutB0GewZ%2fAxQaPleVN4ezzvt8sGgQJGEN4Dqqj%2bC7Gu pbJaqkfMIaCy7OgGQiVXu5QOyDdhZXg7G5WhcZjTl40juQ81UK 9ED10n0h0B6imw%3d%3d#map1-link

[Ian McColgin]

26 (260 degrees) is the longer. It's easy enough to see how with all the rebuilding and such the pilot could have gotten to the end of the wrong runway and all too many pilots do not confirm with a quick glance at the compass, which would have told him that he was aimed 40 degrees south of the plan.

Also, too many controlers don't look out the window. They are doing tests tonight to get a better handle on what each could or could have seen.

It's easy enough to ignore the compass and get turned around as a result, which is why I'm such a maniac on the topic.

And while we're at it, on boats compass headings shoulc be give in three digits - "oh seven oh" for 270. There's a fameous PanAm story which I've heard in enough different contexts that I think it's aviation myth.

In the Pan Am version after a take off from the Azores on an Africa flight the Captian tells his first officer to "take her two seventy." The copilot said, "Roger, two seventy."

A passenger who had some geographic knowledge had to insist some dozen times to the stweardess that they could not reach Africa on one load of fuel flying towards the setting sun.

Three digits. "Two Seven Oh"

'Course, I've been known to tune out the obvious. Coming back (oddly given the story above) from the Azores we'd been in an electrical storm, played with St Elmo's fire, and all that. So in the morning I was on watch faithfully following the compass westerly and little noting that I had the sun off my starboard bow. Our Doctor came up, looked at the compass, looked at the sun, and said, "Gee, didn't the sun used to rise in the East?"

Before releasing the brakes it can't hurt to look at the compass and look out the window. All the errors in airport management pale compared to both Captain and Copilot not checking the compass.

[Gary E]

Exactly right....

Try running some New Jersey Inlets without a compass...in rough weather ...at night...

[ishmael]

Not much sleep sounds about right. It also sounds like the runways were in a bit of confusion due to lights and repavings. Not much help to a pilot coming off the evening shift and expected to be ready at six in the morning. What are the rules about that?

It sounds like he probably saw his error and tried to throttle up and get airborne. Judgement, eh, and who can say?

A shame, but it happens.

[Phillip Allen]

"oh seven oh" for 270. ??

[John of Phoenix]

Try this link. http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLEX

Note the entries for lights on runway 08/26.

MIRL RY 08/26 OTS INDEFLY = Medium intensity runway edge lights for runway 08/26 are out of service indefinitely.

Under data for Runway 26
REIL OTS INDEFLY = Runway end identifier lights at the approach end of runway 26 are out of service indefinitely.

Under Additional Remarks
RY 08/26 DAYTIME VMC USE ONLY = Runway 08/26 is for daytime visual meteorological conditions (good weather) use only.

In sum, all lights for 08/26 had not been operating for some time and were not expected to be repaired in the future. There were no notices (NOTAMs) about outages of the lights for the normal runway 04/22 and no mention has been made about an advisory from the tower.

So how did two experienced pilots end up rolling down an unlighted runway when a lighted runway was crossing their path? My gut tells me that there's a visual trick at play here. Night and rain and a visual illusion.

Crew rest limits are strictly enforced. By the FAA, the airlines and both pilot's and flight attendants unions. I'd be amazed if that turns up as a factor. Military accident? That's the first place to look, but not a scheduled airliner.

And it's not "Oh seven oh". "Oh" can be mistaken for "no" in a noisy cockpit. It's "Zero seven zero."

"Nine", sounds like "fine", becomes "niner."

As one controller once said to a pushy pilot inbound to LAX from Japan, "United one two three heavy, fly heading two niner zero, maintain radio silence, report minimum fuel."

[willmarsh3]

I got back from the Woodenboat show to discover with great sadness that this crash had happened and it took the life of one of my company's employees. As I watch the details of the disaster come to light it reminds me of an incident that occurred in 1989 where a series of mistakes and events that were innocuous by themselves compounded on each other to lead to running out of fuel followed by a crash and fatalities:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varig_Flight_254

[Ian McColgin]

Philip is correct. I was supposed to write "Oh seven oh" for 070 and never say anything as ambiguous as "two seventy" or "to seventy."
The former is, of course, going to two seven oh.

One of these days I'll restore my big flat compass marked in points and just snarl stuff like north-north-east-a quarter-north. Or would that be north-by-east three-quarters-east?

HehHehHeh

[Phillip Allen]

Philip is correct. I was supposed to write "Oh seven oh" for 070 and never say anything as ambiguous as "two seventy" or "to seventy."
The former is, of course, going to two seven oh.

One of these days I'll restore my big flat compass marked in points and just snarl stuff like north-north-east-a quarter-north. Or would that be north-by-east three-quarters-east?

HehHehHeh

I'm reading the O'Brian series...again, and still have trouble with those compass points

[Nicholas Carey]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a.w4b8sU0vU8&refer=us
U.S. FAA Says Tower Understaffed During Comair Crash
By John Hughes and Mary Schlangenstein

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration violated its own policy by having one controller instead of two working at the Lexington, Kentucky, control tower the morning a Comair jet crashed, killing 49.

FAA officials learned after the accident that the policy hadn't been followed, and "they directed the facility manager to ensure that a minimum of two controllers are on duty at all times,'' FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said today.

She said two employees have been staffing the tower in the overnight shift since Aug. 27, the evening after the accident.

[more (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a.w4b8sU0vU8&refer=us)]

[ishmael]

Hm, I smell lawsuits.

[Meerkat]

No, that's just aluminium siding! :D

[High C]

Taxiing in poor visibility can be much more difficult than flying in same. And the guys in the tower can't always see you on the field.

I remember a 0 vis IFR takeoff where the takeoff roll was a piece of cake compared to the taxi to the runway. :eek:

[Dan McCosh]

Given the rather large number of incidents involving planes losing their way on the ground, it seem to me that widely available GPS positioning systems--the same kind that we use navigating boats--would give pilots on the ground info as to where they are and where they are heading on the runways. It's a strange case of where tech that is available to both recreational boaters and car owners doesn't seem to have made it to where it could aid pilots.

[Tristan]

Only one controller in the tower. Monitoring air traffic AND ground movement. Hey, great idea, saves money!

[Phillip Allen]

The lawsuits are always a given...this just gives them another tooth

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The Singapore Airlines 747-400 that crashed at Chiang Kai Shek Airport in Taiwan in November 2000 was attempting to take off in high winds and heavy rain, caused by an approaching typhoon - the pilots selected a runway that had been closed for repairs and struck a metre high wall and construction equipment.

There was no ground radar at CKS at that time and the visibility from the tower was too poor to see the aircraft.

82 died, 81 injured, 16 including all the cockpit crew were unhurt.

The last words on the voice recorder, which I have heard, are "Oh s...!"

[ishmael]

It's become so routine, like busses in the air. I don't fly much, but one of the last times I did the final hop was on a small plane, maybe twenty passengers, into Marquette, MI. A turbo prop.

He had wicked ground fog and made the pass three times before he landed. He came on the com after the second pass and said he might have to divert. It's always a little more "nervous" flying the small ones. You get a sense of shoestring. He landed that buggy, and the cabin, which was open to the cockpit, burst into spontaneous applause. The cap came out grinning and took a small bow.

[Gary E]

Heard that this was the first time these pilots were at that airport... and they got louzzy instructions.... well something smells fishy tio me... How'd they get to that airport ?... pony express? taxicab??? Didnt they land on the correct runway the night before?.. If they did dint they remember the number?

Looks like I wuz right from the start........

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Dont they lable the runways in KY?
or are they like some of the road signs...

Damn shame...

[ahp]

What about those numbers along side the runway (3, 2, 1, 0, whopps). Isn't that a clue?

[Tom Wilkinson]

Heard that this was the first time these pilots were at that airport... and they got louzzy instructions.... well something smells fishy tio me... How'd they get to that airport ?... pony express? taxicab??? Didnt they land on the correct runway the night before?.. If they did dint they remember the number?

Looks like I wuz right from the start........

It could have been their first time landing there and they could have landed on runway 4 if the wind direction was different so they would have taxied on a completely different route than the morning flight.

[John of Phoenix]

GPS based taxiway/runway advisory equipment is in worldwide use. $18,000 a pop.


Using a satellite-based Global Positioning System, the runway alert program advises cockpit crew members about where their plane is in relation to runways and taxiways.

"They hear an oral announcement in the cockpit, 'Approaching Runway 15,' for example," Littlejohn said. "Once they have taxied onto the runway, they are going to hear, 'You are on Runway 15.' "

If the aircraft sits longer than a minute at the end of the runway, the Honeywell system will announce the runway again.

The program also can be set to call out the length of the runway, Littlejohn said.

If an aircraft is outside the runway boundaries and exceeds 40 knots, he said, the system "will start yelling, 'You are on a taxiway!' "
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060829/NEWS0104/608290395

Interesting that the runway centerline lights were out on 22.

[Ian McColgin]

We're learning more about it. Seems the airport chose to operate outside regulations by having but one controller on duty instead of the mandated minimum of two, and that one had but two hours to grab a nap from his previous shift.

The controllers really should exercise their authority to close the airport when it's unsafe. They do it for weather. Do it for unlawfully low staffing.

The pilot still should have checked the compass.

[geeman]

ya unlawful staffing ,but it was still the pilots responsibility to play it safe.

[Meerkat]

We're learning more about it. Seems the airport chose to operate outside regulations by having but one controller on duty instead of the mandated minimum of two, and that one had but two hours to grab a nap from his previous shift. Not the airport itself. It was an FAA operated tower and so the FAA bears responsiblity. News last evening said that FAA towers all over the country are severely understaffed, including at O'Hare and LAX. Many controllers are reaching the mandatory 56 retirement age.

[geeman]

And any sensible person wouldnt put himself in that position,no wonder their having trouble staffing

[Meerkat]

Probably the biggest problem is fewer military-trained controllers coming out of the services.