Comair flight crashes near Lexington

<p>A Comair flight with 50 people on board crashed a mile from Lexington's Blue Grass Airport early Sunday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration said.</p><p>Comair Flight 5191, a CRJ-100 regional jet with 47 passengers and three crew members crashed at 6:07 a.m. shortly after taking off, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. The flight was en route from Lexington to Atlanta.</p><p>She said local authorities have indicated there are significant fatalities.</p><p>The University of Kentucky hospital is treating a survivor from the crash who is in critical condition, spokesman Jay Blanton said. No other survivors have been brought to the hospital, he said.</p><p>Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington, said the hospital was put on disaster alert just after 6 a.m. but has since been asked to stand down by the command center at the crash scene.</p><p>"It sounds like it will be a tragedy we have not seen here in this community in my memory," she said.</p><p>A nine-member team from the National Transportation Safety Board are heading to the crash scene from Washington, said Terry Williams, an NTSB spokesman.</p><p>Comair is also sending a team of investigators to the scene of the crime, said Kim Ronnebaum, a spokeswoman for the airline.</p><p>Comair is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines based in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Ky.</p><p>Large carriers are increasingly using smaller regional jets to curb costs, while deploying larger planes in lucrative international routes.</p><p>The NTSB's last record of a CRJ crash was on November 21, 2004, when a China Eastern-Yunnan Airlines Bombardier crashed shortly after takeoff. The 6 crew and 47 passengers on the CRJ-200 were killed, and there were two ground fatalities.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2006/8/118112