Thoughts on a Small City Tragedy
By 
Today is the first anniversary of the crash of Comair 5191, bound for Atlanta out of Lexington. The aircraft, a CJR-100ER, took off from the wrong runway at Bluegrass Airport and crashed briefly after leaving the ground. Everyone on board was killed except for the first officer, who was pulled from the wreckage by rescue workers. He suffered a collapsed lung, many broken bones, and brain damage; eventually one of his legs was amputated. The NTSB has determined that pilot error was the proximate cause of the crash, and that the sole survivor, who was at the controls during take off, bears considerable responsibility.
I first heard about the crash early on August 27, which was a Sunday. My immediate thoughts regarded my boss, whom I knew was leaving on a flight for Atlanta either Sunday or Monday morning. I called, and fortunately found that his flight left on Monday; apparently he had already received half a dozen phone calls from other concerned parties. Later that day while hanging out with a group of friends that at least two had acquaintances who had been on the plane. At that point the casualty list still wasn’t public, so we only had bits and pieces of information that would drift in over the course of the next couple of days.
It turned out that about 30 of the 49 victims were from Lexington or nearby towns. The University of Kentucky lost an associate dean and an former Wildcats baseball player. For the next few days, the crash would dominate conversation around Lexington. I’m told that the sense of depression amongst the staff at Bluegrass Airport was palpable. I didn’t know any of the victims personally, but of course I had probably met at least a couple during the normal course of life in Lexington.
There are several events today observing the one year anniversary of the crash. It seems that for most tragedies of this kind, the first anniversary marks the end of catharsis. Of course, the relatives of the victims are still hashing out the legal situation with the airline and the aiport, a process which will continue for a while.