Comair Flight 5191: Don't blame pilots -- blame the mind

Unfortunately, no matter how much they’ve flown or how much they think that they know, most of these people are not licensed pilots. It seems like such a simple mistake to depart on the wrong runway. It seems too preventable. Well, nothing is really as it seems. To begin with, Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport’s two runways share a taxiway, are next to each other, and are aligned fairly closely. To add to the confusion, it was just past 6 a.m. and still dark. The pilots departed the wrong runway, one too short for their type of aircraft. Was it a careless mistake? Was it an easy mistake to avoid? Indeed it was. The pilots neglected to check their magnetic compass against the assigned runway. Should we blame the pilots, though? No. A pilot is a professional who must be highly intellectual, skilled and trained in order to safely operate an aircraft. Flying an airplane is no easy task. Before you board the plane, while you board the plane, while the plane taxis, and in every phase of flight, checklist after checklist is performed. Flying an airplane is not the same as driving a car. Aviation has no room for errors.

The pilots departed on a runway that was not assigned to them, a runway whose length did not allow them to takeoff and caused them to crash, killing all but the first officer. Think about how that first officer must feel. He is in critical condition at a Kentucky hospital, he will be terminated from his employment, he will never be able to fly commercially (if at all) again and he can look forward to a life of criticism, lawsuits and depression. It was one tiny mistake that caused this all.

In our daily lives we can forget any number of things and still be fine. In our vehicles, we drive while simultaneously reading maps, chatting on our cell phones, drinking coffee and managing our backseat drivers. We make mistakes all the time in driving. Perhaps it something as trivial as forgetting to signal before changing lanes that is a mistake. But a mistake of that low caliber was the one that caused the accident. It was just a display of how the human mind is not invincible. We all need to take a deep breath and realize that an aviation accident is indeed an accident.

No one wanted Comair 5191 to crash. No one wants any flight to crash. That’s why aviation is still one of the safest ways to get around. Les Lautman, a former Boeing engineer, said "If you were born on a U.S. airplane and never got off, you would encounter your first fatal accident when you were 2,330 years old and you would still have a 27 percent chance of being one of the survivors.” The aviation community grows frustrated when non-pilots talk about these matters as if they know exactly what happened, exactly what caused everything. The aviation community grows tired of hearing that it is not safe to fly. And from each accident, no matter how bad it is, comes good. For every life lost, 10 will be saved by preventative work done as a result of the accident.

Should friends and families of the deceased be angry? Certainly, but perhaps they should be more sad than angry. Should they sue for compensation? That’s a personal choice, but for me, suffice it to say that no amount of money is worth a human life and the more money we force out of the aviation industry, the less money they have to spend on keeping it safe. The human mind is not perfect. No one’s is. Perhaps it never will be. But from small private airplanes to heavy jets and everything in between, aviation is safe. Comair is safe. A behind-the-scenes system that most non-pilots know nothing about makes aviation work. Everyone from ground support crew to maintenance staff to air traffic controllers to pilots keeps aviation safe. And each and every pilot, whether an individual private pilot, a corporate pilot or an airline pilot, is still awaiting you with the same welcome and the same commitment to safety that aviation will never give up.

Brian Franklin is a private pilot out of Palo Alto. He lives in Atherton.<