Plane crash in Lexington Options

[pysex]

(CNN) -- Forty-nine of the 50 people aboard Delta Flight 5191 were killed when the aircraft crashed Sunday morning shortly after takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, according to Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn.

Ginn said he believes most people died from fire-related causes "rather than smoke inhalation."

Flight 5191 -- operated by Delta Air Lines' commuter carrier, Comair -- was en route to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where it was scheduled to land at 7:18 a.m. ET.

First responders extricated the crew's first officer -- the crash's lone survivor -- according to Blue Grass Airport's Chief of Public Safety Scott Lanter.

They "observed movement at the front of the aircraft, and then extricated the first officer from the nose of the airplane," Lanter said.

Comair President Don Bornhorst identified the first officer as James Polehinke.

Polehinke was in critical condition at University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, airline and hospital officials said.

There were 47 passengers and three crew members aboard the flight. One of the passengers was off duty, sitting in the plane's jump seat, Blue Grass Airport Director Michael Gobb said.

Flight 5191 was cleared for take-off at 6:05 a.m. ET, which was the last communication between the pilot and air-traffic controllers at the airport, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

The plane crashed about a half-mile from the end of the runway, said Bornhorst, Comair's president.

Two sources told CNN that radar identifying the plane's location shortly before it crashed indicates that it took off from the wrong runway -- one that was 3,500 feet shorter than the other.

The Bombardier Canadian Regional Jet (CRJ)-200 was cleared to take off from runway 22, which is more than 7,000 feet long, the sources said.

Instead, it took off from runway 26, which is 3,500 feet long, the sources said.

That length is "pretty short for that type of aircraft," former National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bob Francis told CNN.

Lanter confirmed that the crash site was at the end of runway 26 but would not speculate from which runway the flight took off.

"Part of the investigation will establish what runway they were using," Lanter said. "Based on the information we received for the incident, we don't know what runway they were using."

Asked about the possibility that the wrong runway was used, Bornhorst told reporters, "I think that is a rumor and speculation that would be not good for any of us to go down right now."

NTSB investigators could take up to a year before formally ruling on the cause of the crash.

Gobb said the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder "have been retrieved and turned over."

County Coroner Ginn said much of the aircraft remained intact, despite a heavy fire that "traveled with the plane." The airport's fire department "got there very fast ... and because of that, we're able to keep a lot of the plane intact," he said.

"We are going to say a mass prayer before we begin the work of removing the bodies," County Coroner Ginn told The Associated Press, referring to the chaplains who serve the airport.

The coroner's office has set up a temporary morgue in Frankfort -- about 30 miles west of Lexington -- "in order to expedite the autopsies," Ginn said.

He said he is asking family members for dental records to help make identifications.

Comair purchased the CRJ-200 from Bombardier in January 2001 and said its maintenance was up-to-date.

That type of plane has a good track record, according to the NTSB Web site.

Bornhorst said the flight crew had been "on a legal rest period far beyond what is required," but the specifics of the crew's schedule will be part of the NTSB investigation.

The pilot, Capt. Jeffrey Clay, began work with Comair in 1999 and was promoted two years ago to captain, Bornhorst said.

Polehinke has worked for Comair since 2002, and Kelly Heyer, the male flight attendant, had been employed with the carrier since 2004, he said.

The plane went down before sunrise, and scared residents who initially thought it was bad weather.

"I really thought it was a big clap of thunder, so (I) didn't think much about it until I heard all the sirens," one man said.

Another man described what he saw from his back door.

"Over the hillside, I saw a flash of light and then an explosion, and then just a big plume of smoke come up," he said.

In Atlanta, most of the passengers aboard the crashed plane had planned to connect to other flights and did not have family waiting for them there, the Rev. Harold Boyce, a volunteer chaplain at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, told the AP.

One woman was there expecting her sister on the flight. The two had planned to fly together to catch an Alaskan cruise, he said.

"Naturally, she was very sad," Boyce said. "She was handling it. She was in tears."

NTSB investigators are heading to the crash site to begin an investigation.

Sole survivor is the copilot...

Only reason I can guess why this story is getting so much attention is that the copilot will know what went wrong.

[Hartmann]

Sole survivor is the copilot...

Only reason I can guess why this story is getting so much attention is that the copilot will know what went wrong.

Maybe, but they'll get more reliable information out of the flight recorders. Especially if this guy received brain damage or extreme burns.

I am flying Comair on Saturday...