Comair pilots chatty before take-off crash

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Cockpit voice transcripts of a Comair flight that crashed on take-off in Lexington, Ky., in August show the pilots were talking about everything but flying.

The National Transportation Safety Board released the transcript Wednesday of crew chatter on Flight 5191, which took off from the wrong runway and crashed, killing 49 people on Aug. 29.

First Officer James Polehinke was the lone survivor. In the cockpit transcript, he and Capt. Jeffrey Clay can be heard talking about schedules, families, a pet and another pilot, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported Thursday.

Federal regulations prohibit flight crews from "engaging in non-essential conversations within the cockpit" during critical phases of flight, which include "all ground operations involving taxi, takeoff and landing."

The aircraft was cleared to taxi onto a 7,000-foot runway, but ended up on a much shorter one, and crashed seconds after reaching the end of it.

The Federal Aviation Administration admitted soon after the crash it had violated its own policy by having only one controller working instead of two on the midnight shift at the airport.