Lexington, Ky.
The pilots of Comair Flight 5191 were using an outdated airport map when they crashed during takeoff from Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport in August, the Associated Press reported this week. The map, issued last January to airlines by the Federal Aviation Administration, did not show changes to the approach to the airport’s main, 7,000-foot runway. The Comair flight’s pilots mistakenly steered onto a secondary runway that was too short to allow it to take off safely. It crashed in woods less than a mile from the airport, killing 49 of 50 people on board. Two weeks after the crash, the FAA issued an updated version of the map.
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