OH NO !!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060827/...kentucky_crash
LEXINGTON, Ky. - A commuter jet carrying 50 people crashed in a field and caught fire shortly after taking off in light rain Sunday morning. Authorities said at least one person survived.
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Comair Flight 5191, a CRJ-200 regional jet with 47 passengers and three crew members, crashed at 6:07 a.m. after taking off for Atlanta, said Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman.
There was no immediate word on what caused the crash in a field about a mile from Blue Grass Airport. The plane was largely intact afterward, but there was a fire following the impact, police said.
"We have no indication at all that this has anything to do with terrorism," said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA.
The crash marks the end of what has been called the "safest period in aviation history" in the United States.
The University of Kentucky hospital was treating one survivor, who was in critical condition, spokesman Jay Blanton said. No other survivors have been brought to the hospital, he said.
Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said the passengers and crew appeared to still be on the plane and the deaths were caused either by the impact or the "hot fire" on board.
"We are going to say a mass prayer before we begin the work of removing the bodies," Ginn said, referring to the chaplains who serve the airport.
A temporary morgue was being set up at the scene and the bodies will be brought to the state medical examiner's office in Frankfort, Ginn said.
He said both flight recorders have been found.
Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to the scene, said Brown of the FAA.
The airport closed for three hours after the crash, but reopened by 9 a.m.
Chaplains at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport were meeting with family members waiting for their loved ones at the airport, said the Rev. Harold Boyce, an airport chaplain.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush, who is spending a long weekend at his family's summer home on the Maine coast, was being briefed on the crash by aides. The news of it broke while he and his wife, Laura, where at church with the elder Bushes. Perino had no other information about the crash.
Comair is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines based in the Cincinnati suburb of Erlanger, Ky.
The Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100 is a twin-engine aircraft that can carry up to 50 passengers, according to Delta's Web site.
There has not been a major crash in the United States since Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 plunged into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people, including five on the ground.
On Jan. 8, 2003, an Air Midwest commuter plane crashed on takeoff at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, killing all 21 aboard.
Last December, a seaplane operated by Chalk's Ocean Airways crashed off Miami Beach when its right wing separated from the fuselage shortly after takeoff, killing the 18 passengers and two crew members. That plane, a Grumman G-73 Turbo Mallard, was built in 1947 and modified significantly in 1979.
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 members and 47 passengers on the CRJ-200 were killed, and there were two fatalities on the ground.
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Associated Press Writer Leslie Miller in Washington contributed to this report.