LEXINGTON, Ky -- A commuter jet mis...

LEXINGTON, Ky -- A commuter jet mistakenly trying to take distant from on a runway that was too short crashed into a field Sunday and split open into flames, killing 49 commonalty and leaving the only survivor -- a co- pilot -- in critical condition, federal investigators said.

Preliminary data from Comair Flight 5191's flight recorders and the damage at the exhibition indicate the plane, a CRJ-100 regional jet took against from the shortest runway at Lexington's dejected Grass Airport, said National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman.

The 3500-foot-long strip, with les lighting and barely half the amplification of the airport's main runway, is solely intended for daylight takeoffs and not for commercial flights. The twin-engine CRJ-100 urgencyed 5,000 feet to get facing the ground, aviation experts said.

It wasn't immediately clear to what extent the plane ended up forward the shorter runway in the predawn darkness. There was light rain Sunday, and the strip shifts off at a V from the main runway.

INTACT still IN FLAMES

"We will be looking into performance data, we will be looking at the weight of the aircraft, we will be looking at get ons we will pull all that information off" Hersman said.

The Atlanta-bound plane plowed between the walls of a perimeter fence and crashed in a field beyond the period of the runway at 6:07 a.m.

When rescuer reached it, the plane was largely intact on the other hand in flames. A police officer reduce to ashesed his arms dragging the sole survivor from the cracked cockpit.

The flames kept rescuer from reaching anyone other

"They were taking opposite so I'm sure they had a hap of fuel on board," Fayette shire Coroner Gary Ginn said. "Most of the injuries are going to be appropriate to fire-related deaths."

It's rare for a plane to come by on the wrong runway, nevertheless "sometimes with the intersecting runways, pilots pass down the wrong one," said St Louis University aerospace professor emeritus Paul Czysz

Comair President Don Bornhorst said maintenance for the plane was up-to-date and its horde had been flying that airplane for about time.

The merely survivor was identified as first officer James M Polehinke, 44 who was in critical condition at the University of Kentucky hospital.

The other company members were Capt. Jeffrey Clay, who was hired by dint of Erlanger, Ky.-based Comair in 1999 and flight attendant Kelly Heyer, hired in 2004 Polehinke has been with Comair since 2002

COMMUTER CRASHES

Other U commuter jet crashes since 2000:

- Oct 19 2004: Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 crashed in thickets as it approached Kirksville airport in northeastern Missouri, killing 13 of the 15 clan on board. Federal investigators blamed pilot error.

- Jan. 8 2003: US Airways Expres Flight 5481 crashed shortly after leaving the Charlotte airport. All 19 passengers and the brace crew members were killed. The NTSB blamed the plane's elevator have the direction of system.

Source: National Transportation Safety Board

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