NTSB says plane took off from wrong runway.

maryanne kehoe wrote:
this is EXACTLY why I hate flying.



Another fellow white-knuckle flyer here too. I remember when I was a
little girl (and my dad was travelling on business), he would come back
with stories about how good airline service was in the early 1960s. Not
any more.



hey, you want low airfares and bargains right. Well this is what happens
when corners get cut. (When wages get cut and more experienced pilots
bolt and newbie snap up the lower wages).

PorchMonkey4Life wrote:
hey, you want low airfares and bargains right. Well this is what happens
when corners get cut. (When wages get cut and more experienced pilots
bolt and newbie snap up the lower wages).

Regional airlines are generally (but not always) just a starting point
for a pilot's carreer. But the captain should still be experienced
enough to not make such mistakes.

Note that not many years ago, the pilots of a 747 from Singapore
airlines made a similar error at Taipei airport and also crashed upon
takeoff. And 747 pilots are the most experiemced and highly paid pilots
in the industry.

Yes, they took off from the wrong runway. But the NTSB must examine why
this was not caught. Such fatal errors rarely happen because of one
mistake. There may have been signage errors/problems too. And that is
the fault of the airport authority.

But there are a lot more issues to study in terms of aircraft
performance and survivability. There have been many cases of highly
survivable crashes in such situations. In the AC flying skidoo at
Fredericton, all survived if I remember well, except for one occumant
who lost one or two legs due to a tree entering the cabin (or fuselage
hit a tree :-) and crushing his legs against his seat.

In the Singapore airlines case, many survived. And there was a Garuda
DC10 in similar crash where many survived also many years ago.

I feel for the co-pilot though. It would have been far easier for a
passenger or flight attendant to survive. He will live the rest of his
life with a huge guilt, chip on his shoulder.

Some news outlets are now saying that the jet rammed through the
perimeter fence.

Also heard from someone who heard NTSB press conference where it was
said that "skid marks" had been found starting at the end of the runway.
(But no proof that they had been caused by that particular flight).


So, IF the above is factual, then the focus will be on how quickly
pilots started to decelerate the aircraft and whether they deployed
thrust reversers or not. (Can thurst reversers be deployed with thrust
already at high, or would they have had to spin down engines before
deploying the reversers ?).

This stuff should all be outlined in the FDR data.

PorchMonkey4Life wrote:
maryanne kehoe wrote:
this is EXACTLY why I hate flying.



Another fellow white-knuckle flyer here too. I remember when I was a
little girl (and my dad was travelling on business), he would come back
with stories about how good airline service was in the early 1960s. Not
any more.



hey, you want low airfares and bargains right. Well this is what happens
when corners get cut. (When wages get cut and more experienced pilots
bolt and newbie snap up the lower wages).

I don't know Porch but it sounds to me it was the tower's fault for
letting them take off from there. And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?

wrote:

PorchMonkey4Life wrote:

hey, you want low airfares and bargains right. Well this is what
happens when corners get cut. (When wages get cut and more
experienced pilots bolt and newbie snap up the lower wages).

I don't know Porch but it sounds to me it was the tower's fault for
letting them take off from there. And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?

It's not the tower's responsibility to monitor every takeoff. They
simply tell the crew what runway to use, and it is up to the crew to use
the correct one.

Further, if you look at the layout of the airport, the beginning of both
runways are close to each other, and in the same line of sight from the
tower, so it would have been difficult for someone in the tower to tell
which runway they were using.

I also suspect that at that time of the morning, with little other
traffic at the airport, that the tower gave permission to take off while
the aircraft was taxiing, and the crew simply rolled from the taxiway
onto the runway while accelerating, without stopping, and would have been
at takeoff power before the tower would have seen what was happening.

And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?

The lights on that runway are permanently out-of-service. (try to get your
facts right)

rieker wrote:
And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?

The lights on that runway are permanently out-of-service. (try to get your
facts right)

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2365991

LEXINGTON, Ky. Aug 28, 2006 (AP)- The taxi route for commercial jets
at Blue Grass Airport was altered a week before Comair Flight 5191 took
the wrong runway and crashed, killing all but one of the 50 people
aboard, the airport's director said Monday.

wrote:

PorchMonkey4Life wrote:

maryanne kehoe wrote:

this is EXACTLY why I hate flying.



Another fellow white-knuckle flyer here too. I remember when I was a
little girl (and my dad was travelling on business), he would come back
with stories about how good airline service was in the early 1960s. Not
any more.



hey, you want low airfares and bargains right. Well this is what happens
when corners get cut. (When wages get cut and more experienced pilots
bolt and newbie snap up the lower wages).


I don't know Porch but it sounds to me it was the tower's fault for
letting them take off from there. And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?


The tower gave them clearance to take off from the proper runway.
After that, it was up to the pilot to take off from the proper runway.

me wrote:

rieker wrote:

And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?

The lights on that runway are permanently out-of-service. (try to get your
facts right)



LEXINGTON, Ky. Aug 28, 2006 (AP)- The taxi route for commercial jets
at Blue Grass Airport was altered a week before

Do you know the difference between a runway and a taxiway?

rieker wrote:
And why where the lights on that
particular runway if not in use?

The lights on that runway are permanently out-of-service. (try to get your
facts right)

In my research I read people talking about construction lights being on
the short runway in variance to a notice that there weren't supposed to
be lights on that runway. I've also read that there lights that were
NOT on, on the main runway.

Years ago, at that same airport, there was a plane about to take off on
the wrong runway but was stopped by the tower canceling takeoff
clearance. It seems that this confusion has happened before but was
caught by the tower. That didn't happen this time and it would be good
to know why.

Why wouldn't an airport that services airline feeder aircraft NOT have
a runway controller seeing that using the wrong runway is fatal?

Seeing that there are extenuating circumstances, there seems to be a
rush to judgment the media or by some officials. There's enough loose
ends to require our patience for all the reports before assigning any
blame. Let's not lose our interest after a week over this one.