Comair crash lawsuits still unsettled

LEXINGTON, Ky., July 28 (UPI) -- Families of victims of the 2006 Comair crash in Kentucky are scheduled to get their day in court and say they have heart-wrenching tales to tell.

Pretrial memorandums provide new details about Flight 5191, victims' deaths and their families' suffering since, The Courier-Journal, a Louisville, Ky., newspaper, reported Monday. Trial is expected to begin Aug. 5 in U.S. District Court in Lexington, Ky., with a jury being asked to determine liability for the disaster and to potentially award compensatory and punitive damages.

Victims families allege that Capt. Jeffrey Clay and first officer James Polehinke bear responsibility for taking off from the wrong runway and crashing -- resulting in the deaths of all 47 passengers and two crew. The families also allege that Comair was negligent for providing inadequate pilot training and in hiring Polehinke in 2002 without discovering that he'd been convicted of drunken driving in the early 1990s.

Comair has largely blamed the 2006 crash on the Federal Aviation Administration, for allegedly violating its own rules by having only one controller on duty. The Green Grass Airport controller has acknowledged turning his back to work on other duties as the aircraft was taxiing.