Kentucky plane crash kills 49, pilot survives

Lexington (Ky), Aug 28: An airliner carrying 50 people crashed and burst into flames today shortly after taking off from Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, killing all those on board except one of the pilots, officials said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash of Comair Flight 5191, which was bound for Atlanta. Some speculated the plane may have taken off from the wrong runway, which was too short.

Visibility was good and it was not raining at the time of the 1630 hrs IST crash of the Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100 jet, which seats 50 passengers, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.

There was no indication that terrorism was involved, a U.S.

Transportation Security Administration official said.

''We don't have any information that it's security-related,'' said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis. ''I don't have any information that it's anything other than a mechanical issue.'' Airport director Michael Gobb said he did not know if the airliner used the shorter of the airport's two runways. He said a 3,400-foot runway was not lighted, while a longer 7,000-foot runway (2.1 km) had just been repaved and refurbished.

The plane exploded on impact in a field roughly 1 mile from the airport, with the flames likely causing many of the deaths, Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said.

''It was horrible to see an airplane sitting in a field in an unnatural setting,'' Ginn said.

''It was a hot fire that caused considerable damage (to the plane). The majority of indications were that the deaths were fire-related rather than from smoke inhalation,'' he said.

Lexington is the center of Kentucky's famed horse breeding industry, dotted with pristine farms surrounded by bright white wooden fences.

In Critical condition

One of the two pilots was pulled alive from the damaged plane by three police officers, one of whom suffered burns, officials said. The survivor was in critical condition, a University of Kentucky Hospital spokesman said. ''We cannot speculate on the cause of the accident,'' Comair President Don Bornhorst told reporters. ''We will support the investigation.'' The National Transportation Safety Board will head a crash investigation.

Bornhorst said questions about which runway was used for takeoff were ''rumor or speculation that would not be good for any of us to go down right now.'' In Canada, Bombardier Inc. said it had not yet been provided with a tail number for the aircraft. Bombardier said it would be cooperating the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.

The aircraft was acquired new in January 2001 by Comair, a regional carrier operated by Delta Air Lines Inc. and had a clean maintenance record, Bornhorst said. The plane had performed 12,048 takeoff and landing ''cycles.'' The crew was well rested and the weather did not appear to be a factor, he said.

The plane's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder were both recovered, officials said.

There have been relatively few high-casualty air crashes in the United States in the past five years.

The Kentucky crash appeared to be the second-worst in terms of fatalities involving a jet built by Bombardier, the world's third-largest civil aircraft maker.

In November 2004, 47 passengers and six crew members died in the crash of a Bombardier regional jet flown by China Eastern Airlines in Baotou, in China's northern Inner Mongolia region. One person was killed on the ground.

Flights resumed at Lexington's 64-year-old airport, which serves half a dozen carriers, about four hours after the crash.

Reuters