Lexington Comair crash - TSA censors NTSB Report / Docs.

When Lord Patel posted , "Kentucky aircrash - a Queens connection and a coincidence" on Monday 28th August about the crash of Comair (part of Delta) Flt 5191, bound from Lexington to Atlanta that crashed in a balzing inferno shortly after takeoff at 6.06.36 on the previous day last year . Only a day after the accident the cause was fully understood.

Flight 5191 had simply taken off from Runway 26 (1,051 m) not Runway 22 ( 2,100 m) which it would need to get airborne as it would need at least 1,350 metres to the point of rotation (or lift off).

The Bombardier - CRJ - 100 didn't make it and neither did 49 crew and passengers. Only the badly injured co-pilot James Polehinke survived, as did the flight recorders.

This was the most serious air crash the in terms of deaths since November 2001, when American Airlines Flt 587 Airbus A300-600 No N14053 mysteriously crashed in Queens NY, shortly after takeoff from JFK airport, killing 265 people.

Lord Patel pointed out that pilot Polehinke had been with Comair since 2002 and was based out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens... a coincidence of no significance whatever .. but a memory jog.

NTSB Board meet to consider report on Lexington crash

So when Reuters ( and USA Today, CNN etc.,) reported on Wednesday 25th July 2007 , that after a day long hearing in Washington (without witnesses) that The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had concluded that the experienced flight crew of Capt. Jeffrey Clay and First Officer James Polehinke who had previously flown from the Blue Grass Airport , Lexington ...

1. Missed visual cues;
a) Runway markings
b) Construction barricades
c) Standard taxi route signs

2. Failed to conduct proper preflight procedures for Flight 5191 to Atlanta

3. Confirm its position on the runway to the control tower

4. Engaged in idle chatter on unrelated matters ( from 6:02:16 a.m. on taxi way until they move to sit on the hold line at 6.04.33) in violation of FAA ( a "sterile cockpit") and company regulations that may have distracted them..

..and at 6.06.00 set the throttles for take off on the fatal short Runway 26 instead of Runway 22 they noticed (Polehinkes on the voice recorder at 6.06.16 says "its weird" ) that the tarmac (which was under construction) was not lit, but it was too late to abort and they attempted rotation, hit an earth berm, trees and crashed in flames 1820 feet from runway from the airport.

The lone veteran Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controller (a second controller was required but not staffed by the FAA) on duty having cleared the only flight , who was not required to , "follow the aircraft movement from that point", directed his attention to some paperwork. The five member board forced to vote, decided that "the controller's actions did not contribute directly to the crash."

Staff dismissed as a non-factor the violation of an FAA directive calling for two controllers to work overnight shifts in airports like Lexington - one to keep an eye on the ground, the other to monitor radar.

The weather was clear, the crew fully rested . The plane was mechanically sound. Two previous flights had departed uneventfully on the correct runway.

Simply the pilots got it wrong, a problem the NTSB investigating staff struggled to explain how two competent pilots and the tower controller who cleared the jet for takeoff could make such blindingly obvious mistakes.

Staff members had also concluded the flight crew's lack of updated maps and notices alerting them to construction that had changed the taxiway route a week earlier was not a factor in the navigation error. Board Member Debbie Hersman pointed to the paperwork the crew never got detailing the taxiway change. Not only was it not in their packet from Comair, but the air traffic controller didn't broadcast the announcement that morning, even though it had been doing so the rest of the week.

Debbie Hersman said, this accident led them, " ...into the briar patch of human behavior." Hmmmmm.

Some 25 bereaved family members watched a live TV link at the downtown Hyatt in Lexington - Lois Turner whose husband died said "...the hard part, (is) to know that there were so many missed opportunities."

In what the NTSB considered basically was a slam dunk case of pilot error (despite understrength and diverted air control staff, absence of construction / taxi route changes for pilots / failure to broadcast taxi changes ) it had taken a long time to report.

TSA black out "sensitive data" in NTSB report / docs.

Therefore it was interesting to read in the Washington Post a report by Jeffrey McMurray (AP) , " Ky.Plane Crash screened for Secrets" on Tuesday 24th July, the day before the NTSB met a reason for some of the delay in reporting.

Jeffrey reported that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) (created in November 2001 as a response to 9/11) which has no statutory role in the investigation of the crash, had reviewed the investigation report for, "secret information about aviation procedures."

Apparently TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says the agency doesn't want "sensitive security information" involving airline operations to become public ,"because airline manuals often have overlap between safety and security procedures". So the agency inspected about 39,000 pages of documents sought in lawsuit by families of the crash victims between March and May and which must have led to delays.

Michael Gobb, executive director of Blue Grass Airport, which Comair has listed in a countersuit, said the TSA review came at the request of Comair, which is based in Erlanger, Ky. (Cincinatti Post) (WDTN.OH) (video to view here MUST SEE)

Two families have raised lawsuits against Comair and are represented by Attorney Stan Chesley who says his firm is still waiting for records and depositions to be distributed, he understands that when those documents are returned to be filed in the public record, the sensitive data will be blacked out.

Former director of the NTSB Jim Hall said he is surprised (he isn't the only person) that an agency that usually deals with terrorism threats would get involved in reviewing the legal documents of a plane crash attributed to human error.

"It totally shocks me," Hall said. "I have no understanding what their role would be unless it was a criminal matter, and that would seem to be handled by the FBI. If I were a family member, I would definitely want to know what the TSA was doing."

The NTSB proceedings are separate from the lawsuits, which will of course be heard in state / federal courts.

It is therefore even more interesting that the following day - the day the NTSB met in Washington , that the same AP reporter Jeffrey Mc Murray had a very long story in the Louisville Courier - Journal about the the case that Stan Chesley ( a fire follower starting with the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire 30 years ago in which 165 people died ) has about post accident survivability. Whilst the NTSB concentrated on the pilot's mistakes, Chesley points out that ....the fuel carrying wings were largely intact - the fuselage where the passengers sat was gone -- engulfed by a massive fire, even though the plane had never got far off the ground. First responders told investigators the explosion was almost instantaneous, giving passengers little opportunity to escape.

The safety board's preliminary report suggested at least 16 passengers suffered smoke inhalation, indicating they were still alive at impact time and perished by choking and fire.

When the American Airlines Flt 587 Airbus A300-600 No N14053 mysteriously crashed in Queens NY, shortly after takeoff from JFK airport, killing 265 people the NTSB eventually found that the rudder fell off as a result of anual over correction by the pilot in response to wind turbulence from the preceding JAL 747 flight... ignoring eye witnesses who saw fireballs and explosions in the mid section of the plane etc.,

.. and within half an hour the NTSB chairperson lady declared it was not a terrist incident, although the Hudson tunnel was closed, etc., etc.,

It makes Lord Patel consider checking with Homeland terrist Chertoff about the way to evaluate your guts .. because when the TSA want to "inspect" the NTSB report into a slam dunk crash and to black out sensitive data .. from the public report / documents ... his guts get a feeling.

Odd that Lord Patel made the connection between Old Blue Grass Airport and Kennedy Airport a year ago ..... very odd.