I, like most everyone, woke up to the news yesterday that a Comair plane had crashed killing 49 of the 50 people onboard in Lexington, KY. Anytime there is an aviation accident, I am affected by it because I spent so much time in the industry, but this crash hit even closer to home not only have I been down the runway at the Lexingon Bluegrass Airport a hundred times, but also because I spent years flying on and training other flight attendants on the same aircraft type that was involved in yesterday's crash- Canadair Regional Jet.
I keep going over in my head what the passengers on the plane must have gone through. Surely, they had enough time to realize that something terribly wrong was happening, which was always my fear. If I'm ever in a fatal crash, I don't want to know about it. The flight was scheduled to depart at 6:00 a.m., which meant that most passengers were up at 3:30 a.m., or sooner that morning. The passengers would have been tired; probably hoping for a short nap on the hour-long flight to Atlanta. With it being so early and still dark, I know people had asked for pillows and would have been settled in by the time they pushed back from the gate. It would have been easy for some to have started dozing off by the time the plane took off. It's not even comprehendable to imagine what their realization that the plane was crashing felt like. There were three people in the cockpit, which makes this even worse. There is a small fold-down seat that slides out in front of the cockpit door for an extra person to sit up front (needed for FAA checkrides, training, etc.. but is used often, as in this case, for pilots traveling off-duty. They like to see other pilots in action, or will take that seat as an option if the cabin is full.) The "jumpseater" (that extra pilot) barely has room for his/her feet up there. So, these pilots turned on to the wrong runway for some reason or another (I'm not implying it was pilot error, although it does appear that was the case), and not one of the three caught the mistake in time to abort the takeoff. I can picture the moment when the plane is barreling down the runway and they realize the mistake. There's not enough room to stop, most likely not enough room to take off either, and only a split second to make the decision. Stopping would mean running off the runway at more than 100 miles per hour, through a fence, through trees, and up a hill. So, they tried to take off. Part of the plane, I assume the under side of the tail, struck the runway. The plane had to have been at a very very steep attitude because it's speed would have been much to slow to gently lift off. There would have been compression explosions that's the equivilent of a car backfiring, but much more intense on a plane where that isn't "normal". It went through a fence, trees, and hit the ground. I feel for the people that were on the plane, as well as their families. I also feel for the First Officer who was the sole survivor. I keep running through the moment when he will wake up at the hospital. His first question will be about the others on the plane. Could you imagine being told that everyone died? They say the First Officer, the sole survivor, was flying the plane during this flight segment (the Captain and FO split the trip equally so they both get flying time - both are responsible, but only one has "control"), but the catch to this is that the nose wheel control which steers the aircraft on the ground is located on the Captian's side of the cockpit. Even if the FO was responsible for the take off, he didn't like the plane up on the incorrect runway nor did he double check the heading. I hope he is able to deal with this loss.
Another piece to this story, which is not confirmed yet that I know of, is the report that the crew may have had a short overnight in Lexington. Many times airlines will assign these "High Speeds" or "Stand-up Overnights" to the crews that have the flights into smaller cities with less frequent service. The FAA and employee unions have minimum rest requirements for flight crew members - there are many complicated exceptions but the absolute minimum is 8 hours, going up to 10 hours for crews on domestic flights. Typically, an airline will have two complete crews overnighting in a city each day - and one airplane. The first crew finishes around 2p.m., the second crew finishing around 10p.m. on the last flight in. Then the crew that got in around 2p.m. will take the morning flight out, with the 10p.m. crew taking a 2p.m. flight out when the next day's overnighters come in. So in these cities with less frequent service, this costs the airlines more money for the hotels and leaves planes sitting around for more hours at night than they'd like. The alternative is to have these highspeed crews report for duty at their home base around 9p.m., take the last flight in to the city, stay at the hotel for about 5 hours, then take the morning flight back to base and be "off duty" for their rest period at home during the day. Since you can technically be on duty for up to 16 hours in one day, being on duty all night is okay with the FAA because the crew gets the minimum rest during the day, thus resetting the clock. I use to love these (once my body got over the shock), because I was home every day and only had to work two flights per day - as opposed to being away for 5 days and working 6+ flights per day. The problem is that it's impossible to sleep all day at home, and only getting the 4 +- hours of sleep in the hotel is useless, leaving you very out of it the next morning. Honestly, it's not safe. Flight attendants and pilots have complained for years and the employee unions have lobbied congress to change the laws. Crews often are left without enough rest - sometimes during regular schedules and often during maintenance or weather delays that cause 16 hour days with only 9 hours of off time in between. If you have 9 hours of off-duty time, it doesn't mean you're getting nine hours of sleep. An hour is spent getting from the plane to the hotel (sometimes more if the van isn't waiting), another hour to wind down, an hour to get ready and get back to the airport, and an hour to get the plane ready for that day's service - see how quickly 9 hours of "rest" can become 5 or less hours of "sleep". As a passenger, if you're ever waiting on a delayed flight and the gate agent announces that the reason is because of "crew required rest," please don't be pis*ed at the crew when they show up because a)it's the law, and b)you want them to have the rest they need to get you where you're going safely. Sorry - off topic.
Hopefully, the families can concentrate on all the positive happy times they were able to spend with their loved ones, the NTSB can put together an accurate picture of what happened here, and the surviving FO can cope with what happened. I was working a flight that was grounded on 9/11, I've had many emergencies in flight including a windshield exploding out of the plane at 39,000 feet (and a woman got mad during my emergency briefings because she wasn't going to make the graduation ceremony she was the keynote speaker at), I've known crew members killed while working (my company's crash in Charlotte a couple years ago that killed 21), and this is never easy to get over.
This story will fade from the headlines in the days to come, but
here is an unofficial partial passenger list with a short bio and pictures of some of those onboard. Reading the article makes it personal
Update: The jumpseater was not sitting the cockpit, so there were only two pilots up front. The third pilot onboard was an AirTran pilot heading to work in Atlanta, but a seat became open for him in the cabin just before boarding and he took it instead.
