Official: Taxi route was changed at Ky. airport

Pilot suggested warning
The pilot, who is not identified, suggested the Lexington airport post a warning to pilots “to clarify multiple runway ends,” according to a text of the letter provided by FlightAware.com.

Hersman said the NTSB was interviewing the controller on duty early Sunday, reviewing records and transcribing the data and voice recorders retrieved from the crash.

Monday afternoon, investigators planned to use a high-riding truck to try to get the same view of the runway and airport layout that the pilots of Comair Flight 5191 would have had, she said.

She said they planned to conduct the same test on Tuesday at 6 a.m., the time of the crash to “try to see what the pilot saw.”

The plane’s two pilots were familiar with the twin-engine CRJ-100, and that plane in particular, the plane’s maintenance was up to date, and it wasn’t an old aircraft, Comair President Don Bornhorst said. Comair, based in Erlanger, Ky., is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc.

“We are absolutely, totally committed to doing everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident,” Bornhorst said Sunday.

At Blue Grass Airport, flights were back to normal Monday. The 6 a.m. Lexington-to-Atlanta flight took off safely, though with a different flight number, Delta 6107.

“Obviously there is some anxiety when something like this happens, but it is not something that would stop me from going,” said Mark Carroll, 47, a computer consultant from Lexington who was boarding the flight to Atlanta. “Things happen when you get older, it happens to everyone. You keep doing what you’re doing.”

The wreckage of Flight 5191 remained largely intact but severely burned in a field about a mile away.

The burned bodies of the 49 victims were removed from the plane on Sunday and taken to the state Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort for autopsies to determine the cause of death. Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said Sunday that they likely died in the fire.

The passengers
The victims included a newlywed couple starting their honeymoon, a director of Habitat for Humanity International, an owner of a thoroughbred horse farm, a University of Kentucky official and a Florida man who had caught an early flight home to be with his children.

Amid the devastation, there was also a story of heroism: Police Officer Bryan Jared reached into the broken cockpit and pulled out James M. Polehinke, the plane’s first officer, burning his own arms to save the man. Polehinke was listed in critical condition at University of Kentucky Hospital.

The crash marked the end of what has been called the “safest period in aviation history” in the United States. There has not been a major crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in New York City, killing 265 people, including five on the ground.

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