49 dead in Kentucky plane crash

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- A commuter jet crashed during take off early Sunday and burst into flames, killing 49 people and leaving the lone survivor in critical condition. Investigators were trying to determine if the plane was on the wrong runway and ran out of pavement.\nComair Flight 5191, a CRJ-200 regional jet, crashed at 6:07 a.m. in a field less than a mile from the runway, said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.\nIt was the country's worst domestic airplane accident in nearly six years.\nThe cause of the crash wasn't immediately clear, but the location of the wreckage raised questions about the runways at Blue Grass Airport. The burning plane was just off the end of the airport's 3,500-foot-long general aviation runway, an unlit strip built at a V shape to the longer main runway. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it would have been too short for the CRJ-200 jet.\nThe plane was in flames but largely intact when rescuers reached it, and authorities said they were able to get one crew member out alive, but the fire was devastating.\n"They were taking off, so I'm sure they had a lot of fuel on board," Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said. "Most of the injuries are going to be due to fire-related deaths."\n"We are going to say a mass prayer before we begin the work of removing the bodies," he said.\nFAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency had no indication that terrorism was involved in any way. Both flight recorders, which should help investigators determine what went wrong, were sent to Washington, D.C., for analysis.\nLexington police spokesman Sean Lawson said investigators were looking into whether the pilot discovered too late that he was on the wrong runway. The main runway at Lexington's airport is 7,000 feet long, while a daytime-only, general aviation runway is about 3,500 feet. Blue Grass Airport had been closed to flights the previous weekend for runway repaving but reopened Aug. 20.