Pilot Error

The tragic crash of a commuter jet at a small regional airport in Kentucky yields some curious questions about how such a horrible event could have happened. The airplane attempted to take off from runway 26, which, as has been widely reported, is only 3,500 feet long. Heavily laden jet aircraft require more distance for a takeoff rollout. The airplane should have departed from runway 22, which is approximately 7,000 feet in lenght, more than enough for most commercial airliners (and, incidentally, quite a bit longer than the heavily-used runway 8 at Burbank, which is only 5,800 feet long).

The flight began at approximately 6:10 am in the pre-dawn near-darkness. Yet, it has been reported that the runway had no lights. Surely an experienced commercial pilot would have questioned whether he was in the right place if he were looking down a dark runway. However, the airfield was underdoing rennovations, which may have led to both an error in ground navigation and a mistaken lack of alarm over missing lights. A mistake with tragic consequences, to be sure, but one with many causes.

What is much more vexing for me is how the pilot ever could have begun his takeoff roll on runway 26, knowing he was cleared for runway 22. The lights may have been absent or off and the taxiways may have been improperly routed, but one item in the pilot's view should have unequivocally told him something was wrong: his compass. Runways are identified with a numerical designation that corresponds to compass heading to which the runway points. Thus, runway 22 points to 220 degrees on the compass, or approximately southwest, while runway 26 points to 260 degress, or approximately west. According to FAA information, the orientation of runway 22 is 226 magnetic, 222 true, whereas runway 26 is 265 magnetic, 261 true. A plan view of the airfield shows this convention at work:




I am not a pilot and have never taken classes in order to obtain a pilot's license. I do not know the checkoff procedures undertaken by any pilots, let alone commercial airline pilots. I have no desire to impugn the reputation of the pilot; he has lost his life as a result of whatever errors were made. However, crash investigations take place in the hope that something might be learned that would prevent a similar disaster in the future. In this instance, it seems to me that the basic rules of runway identification should have been enough to alert the pilot that something was seriously amiss. If the airplane was to take off from runway 22, it seems that the compass should have shown a direction somewhere in the neighborhood of southwest. Unfortunately, it appears that in the rush to get the commuters on their way on a confusing airfield, this simple check was overlooked.

There are two words to describe this event, it seems to me. One is "tragic."

The other is "preventable."