Co-pilot in fatal Kentucky plane crash sues over runway lights
By Ken Kaye | South Florida Sun-Sentinel August 28, 2007
James Polehinke of Margate, the lone survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people in August 2006, has sued the company that designed the runway and taxiway lights at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky.
The suit, filed in Fayette County, Ky., Circuit Court, says AVCON Inc., based in Orlando, failed to use appropriate care in designing the lighting systems at the airport. Many commercial pilots, including Polehinke, who was the co-pilot on Comair Flight 5191, had to rely on erratic and haphazard lighting, the suit says.Federal investigators have said that the main runway's lights were working on the morning of the crash, although the center lights were out.
The Comair jet attempted to take off from a perilously short, unlit strip in the pre-dawn darkness on Aug. 27, 2006. It ran off the runway and crashed.
By Ken Kaye | South Florida Sun-Sentinel August 28, 2007
James Polehinke of Margate, the lone survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people in August 2006, has sued the company that designed the runway and taxiway lights at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky.
The suit, filed in Fayette County, Ky., Circuit Court, says AVCON Inc., based in Orlando, failed to use appropriate care in designing the lighting systems at the airport. Many commercial pilots, including Polehinke, who was the co-pilot on Comair Flight 5191, had to rely on erratic and haphazard lighting, the suit says.Federal investigators have said that the main runway's lights were working on the morning of the crash, although the center lights were out.
The Comair jet attempted to take off from a perilously short, unlit strip in the pre-dawn darkness on Aug. 27, 2006. It ran off the runway and crashed.