[shankbear]

Probably so.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Sounds like it might be another case of "get-there-itis" - crew in a hurry to keep the airline's schedule and didn't take time to check the compass heading.

[Clive]

-

[bert]

Where was ground control?

Who was watching as "clear for takeoff" was uttered?

The tower was asleep.

[ladyinred]

How sad. I wondered what could have happened.

[Joann37]

Another idiotic headline, as if these pilots were just morons or something. A mention of the conditions of the runways could have been incorporated into the headline, resulting in something like "Construction on runways may have led to confusion on takeoff".

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[LikeLight]

And what a sad thing that the sole survivor is the one who will bear the agonizing guilt for the deaths of the other 49. Man, does this poor soul have some tough sledding ahead, if he survives.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

"Ground control, to Master Tom..."

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

There is a good lesson to learn: trust your gut and never assume.

[bill1952]

Ummm. - Aligning the DG to the mag compass and verifying RW heading with the mag compass isn't done anymore?

[stm]

The first thing I always do after taking the runway at an unfamiliar airport is check my compass. It tells me if my compass is aligned and I am on the correct runway. If I recall correctly, the runway they took was 40 different in heading than the one they should have taken. It's hard to miss that much difference, even at night.

[rwfromkansas]

you think....

[StAnDeliver]

"A temporary advisory to pilots warning of the lighting outages on the longer runway used by commercial flights at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport had expired the day before the crash, the aviation sources said."

No new NOTAMS regarding the updated MIRL info and maybe an additional graf on the new taxiways and barriers? That's just sad.

[Sting 11]

The understaffing of the tower that the FAA acknowledged is that there was only one controller on that shift, which means he worked a straight-eight alone. The tower cab itself was not understaffed. There would have only been one controller in the cab regardless...a second controller would have been on break.

Many, many towers are staffed with just a single controller in the cab at one time. At Toledo Express, where I work, the tower cab is operated by a single person almost 24/7/365...only rarely are there two people on position in the tower. I'm sure many other airport towers the size of Toledo or Lexington operate the same way...and that's not going to change...the FAA doesn't have the personnel.

If you think this is a safety problem, petition the Bush administration and your congresscritters...because they don't really care about ATC staffing problems.

[Glenn]

Ya think?