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美客机失事49亡 疑用错跑道
[ 2006-08-28 09:00 ]

8月27日凌晨,一架CRJ-100型客机在列克星敦市机场坠毁,造成49人死亡。据悉,该客机上有47名乘客与3名机组人员,事故发生后,仅有1名副驾驶员幸存。初步调查显示,肯塔基州列克星敦市机场客机坠毁事件疑与驾驶员用错跑道有关,驾驶员似乎错误地使用了一条短距离的跑道,导致飞机根本没有升入空中就坠毁,并且发生了大火,火灾成了机上人员丧命的主要原因。

 

A Comair Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jet similar to the one that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, yesterday morning is shown in this file photo. Comair Flight 5191 went down a mile from Lexington's airport shortly after takeoff. At least one person survived. [AP]

A Comair jet crashed and burned in a Kentucky horse pasture on Sunday after a failed takeoff, killing all but one of the 50 people aboard, authorities said.

Flight 5191, a Canadair CRJ-100 bound for Atlanta, apparently used the wrong runway at Blue Grass Airport, one that was much shorter and not meant to handle commercial flights, an aviation source said.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and officials of Comair, a unit of bankrupt Delta Air Lines, declined to discuss a suspected cause.

There was no indication terrorism was involved, a Transportation Security Administration official said. Commercial aviation has been on heightened alert in recent weeks after authorities in London said they broke up a plot to bomb U.S.-bound trans-Atlantic flights.

Comair Flight 5191 was the third of a dozen early morning takeoffs scheduled at Lexington. The two previous planes used the longer runway without incident, the aviation source said.

The airport's two runways -- one 3,400 feet (1 km) long, the other 7,000 feet (2.1 km) -- intersect, and the pilots of the jet made by Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. had been cleared to use the longer of the two.

There are indications the ill-fated plane never got airborne and crashed through a fence before coming to rest in a field, the source said.

The plane exploded into flames, which likely caused most of the deaths, Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said. "It was horrible to see an airplane sitting in a field in an unnatural setting," he said.

Forty-nine of the 50 people aboard were killed. One of the two pilots, first officer James Polehinke, was pulled alive from the wreckage by three police officers. The survivor was in critical condition, a University of Kentucky Hospital spokesman said.

Lexington is the center of Kentucky's famed horse breeding industry, and the area is dotted with pristine farms surrounded by bright white wooden fences. The nearby Keeneland Race Course was the site of several news briefings.

(Agencies)

Vocabulary:
 


Comair jet: 柯麦尔航空公司(美国达美航空公司旗下的子公司)

wrong runway: 错跑道

bound: (常与for连用)要往…去的; 开往…去的。例如:This train is bound for Shanghai.(这列火车是开往上海的。)

intersect: 与…相交,与…形成交叉

(英语点津陈蓓编辑)

 
 

 

 

 
 

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