Air safety officials were on Sunday night investigating whether a plane that crashed in Kentucky, killing 49 people, took off from a runway that was too short.
The commuter flight to Atlanta plunged back to earth less than a kilometre from Blue Grass airport just before dawn on Sunday. One survivor, believed to be the co-pilot, was in a critical condition after being pulled from the burning wreckage.
It is believed the majority of the victims burned to death.
Early reports suggested the six-year-old Bombardier Canadian Regional jet took off from a runway less than half the 2 100m length of the main runway it should have been on.
Don Bornhorst, president of Comair, the flight’s operator, refused to answer questions about which runway the plane was on and said the claim was ”rumour and speculation”.
Sources at the airport, however, told CNN that radar pictures confirmed the jet took off from the shorter runway 26, which was not illuminated. And there were reports that trees at the end of the runway appeared to have been struck by an aircraft.
A spokesperson for the national transportation safety board — the body which will study the accident in detail — said that data from flight records seemed to show the jet took off on the wrong runway, which is one not meant to be used for commercial flights.
Board member Debbie Hersmann said: ”We will be looking into performance data; we will be looking at the weight of the aircraft; we will be looking at speeds; we will pull at that information off, and we will be looking at all that.”
The safety board has recovered both of the plane’s black box flight recorders. It will also be studying engine failure and freak weather as possible causes, in an inquiry which could last a year. Terrorism has been ruled out.
”It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that it did not get airborne,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation analyst. ”[A runway of] 5 000ft is the minimum for one of these planes.”
Comair flight 5191 was carrying 47 passengers, two of them a young honeymooning couple, and three crew when it left Blue Grass at 6.10am on Sunday, according to Bornhorst. The plane did not gain altitude and hit the ground almost immediately. One witness spoke of a glow from the crash site and an explosion seconds later as fuel from tanks in the wings ignited.
Scott Lander, chief of public safety at Blue Grass airport, told of the ”heroic” rescue of the first officer, Jim Polehinke, by three police officers among the first on the scene. ”They did a tremendous job. They saw movement in the front of the aircraft and pulled him out.” One officer suffered minor injuries.
A spokesperson for the University of Kentucky-Chandler hospital said Polehinke, who has worked for Comair since 2002, was undergoing surgery and was in a critical condition.
The pilot was named as Jeff Clay, who joined the airline in 1999.
Gary Ginn, the Fayette county coroner, said: ”It was a hot fire, meaning the craft had considerable damage to it. We believe the majority of individuals will be fire-related deaths rather than smoke inhalation. It’s going to be a long job to remove them all.
”The chaplain said prayers and we had a moment of silence at the scene. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep people intact, and preserve evidence as well as the identity of these individuals. I assure the families we will treat individuals with dignity.”
Ginn added that a temporary morgue had been set up at the crash site. The state medical examiner’s office appealed for relatives of the victims to come forward with dental records to help with identification.
The airline said it would release details of the passengers once relatives were informed.
On Sunday night authorities said that John Hooker (27) a former baseball player with the University of Kentucky, and Scarlett Parsley, who married each other on Saturday night, were among the dead. ”It’s so tragic because he was so happy last night,” said Keith Madison, a former coach who was at the wedding.
Bornhorst told reporters that Comair, a subsidiary of Delta, the second largest US airline, bought the 50-seat CRJ-200 new from its manufacturer in January 2001, and it had no history of maintenance problems.
Families of the victims complained of how airport officials broke the news. Rick Queen of Lexington, whose father-in-law, Les Morris, was on the flight, said: ”It was very poorly handled. They didn’t meet with us one on one, they just brought us all in a room like a herd of cattle and said there were no survivors. There are 48 grieving families here.”
Aviation journalist Robert Hager told NBC News he believed the plane was probably on the wrong runway. ”Looking at the early evidence, it sure looks like that happened. For the plane to end up in that position, if it had gone off the main runway, it would have had to have made a sharp turn.”
Michael Gobb, chief executive of Blue Grass airport, said that construction work had recently been finished on the shorter, 3 400ft runway, but there were no obstructions on it. ”It’s a daytime runway only and should not have been in use at that time.” – Guardian Unlimited Â