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To: RebelTex
That can't be good.

No, but it's not as uncommon a mistake as you might think. I don't know for sure, but I assume that LEX, like many airports, doesn't use jetways for regional jets. So the pilots get to the airport when it's dark, walk out onto the ramp, and have two identical airplanes parked next to each other. There aren't any visual differences, and the gate agents and ramp workers may have been too busy doing other things to point out the right aircraft. Certainly they could have checked; the important part is to figure out why they believed they were in the right airplane - did they just assume, or was there was a paperwork problem, or maybe they did ask a gate agent who pointed to the wrong airplane. Fatigue could have come into play there as well. I think many things will be learned once all the links in this accident chain are discovered and analyzed.

Isn't Delta in bankruptcy? Are they pushing their crews too hard?

To be precise, this was a Comair flight. While Comair is owned by Delta, and their flights are operated as "Delta Connection", they are a separate airline with their own operating certificate, and their crews have separate unions with different contracts and different crew rules, over which Delta has no say.

952 posted on 08/30/2006 4:48:51 PM PDT by Turbopilot (iumop ap!sdn w,I 'aw dlaH)
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To: Turbopilot

Thanks for the info. I didn't think about Comair being a subsiduary with its own rules, unions, etc. Just goes to show you how easy it is to overlook a 'little' detail.

(Didn't someone once say that there's no such thing as a 'little' detail? If not, someone should - oh, wait, I just did.)


954 posted on 08/30/2006 5:51:50 PM PDT by RebelTex (Help cure diseases: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1548372/posts)
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