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Family files suit over Comair crash

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 2, 2006

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The family of a woman killed when Comair Flight 5191 took off on the wrong runway and crashed in flames sued the airline Friday, blaming it for the nation's deadliest airplane disaster in five years.

The lawsuit accuses Comair of negligence and says passenger Rebecca L. Adams suffered "conscious pain and suffering" when the plane went down Sunday morning and burned with 49 people still inside.

The only survivor was the co-pilot, who remained hospitalized Friday but was upgraded from critical to serious condition.

The regional jet had left the gate before dawn with 50 people aboard. The pilots mistakenly turned onto the wrong runway, one too short for the twin-engine plane, and tried to take off. The plane crashed in a field just beyond Lexington's Blue Grass Airport.

Adams' son, Joshua Isaac Adams, said the family was pursuing legal action "so that we can one day have the answers we need."

Nick Miller, a Comair spokesman, said he couldn't comment on pending litigation.

Earlier this week, a Texas law firm ran a full-page ad in the Lexington Herald-Leader promising to get maximum damages for the families of victims who hired it.

Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc., operates 850 flights to 108 cities daily. Both airlines filed for bankruptcy protection last year.

The Lexington airport board met in a private session Friday morning to discuss "proposed litigation" against it as well. Michael Gobb, the airport director, said at least one family of the victims had told the airport it intends to sue.

Federal officials have been looking into how the plane ended up on the 3,500-foot-long runway, the shortest of two runways at the Lexington airport and meant only for small planes.

[Last modified September 2, 2006, 01:06:06]