The regional industry seems to have avoided the usual onslaught of negative publicity surrounding accidents after the August 27 crash of a Comair 50-passenger Bombardier CRJ 100. The last such onslaught in the mid-1990s served to virtually kill the turboprop in traveler's minds. However, evergreen issues of flight and duty time both for pilots and controllers were raised, along with pilot experience.

Media has clearly accepted regionals as just another part of the air transportation industry. While USA Today reported the good safety record of the industry in the early days of its reporting, the drive to continue coverage led media outlets to ask how safe travelers are on "commuter" airlines and, specifically, regional jets. Top travel editor Peter Greenberg noted on NBC's The Today Show that pilots, while limited to eight hours flight time, could be on duty up to 16 hours. Greenberg explained that regionals are as safe as the major carriers but not before Anchor Matt Lauer got in sound bites expressing doubts about pilot training, maintenance spending and flight and duty time. This, despite the fact that the investigation is focusing on air traffic control issues and how only one controller was on duty rather than the mandatory two. Greenberg also noted that there are more regional jet departures today than those by mainline jets.

At a time when both Comair and its major partner, Delta (DALQ), are struggling with bankruptcy and labor problems, the accident can only exacerbate an already bad situation. The tragedy of Flight 5191 occurred at 6:00 a.m. local time as the aircraft lifted off from Lexington, Ky. enroute to Atlanta, killing all 47 passengers, the flight attendant and captain.

The investigation has also focused on the crew and the fact it took off on the wrong runway, which fell short of the 5,000 feet needed for the CRJ100. The industry has been pilloried often for crew inexperience in the past, as have turboprop operators. While national news media are reporting this as the first accident since the 2001 crash of an American Airlines jet into a Queens, NY community, the industry has since endured two other major accidents: the Regions Air Jetstream 31 accident in 2004 which killed 19, and the Chalk's Grumman Mallard accident last December which killed 20. The Comair accident is the second-worst in terms of fatalities involving a Bombardier regional jet. In November 2004, 47 passengers and six crew members died in the crash of a Bombardier regional jet flown by China Eastern Airlines.

Questions remain. The airport did not have airport surveillance detection equipment (ASDE), which should have caught surface runway activity. A new version of ASDE, dubbed ASDE-X, is slated only for the top 35 airports. The airport does have 35-year-old ASR-7, which even the FAA called obsolete. It is slated for replacement by ASR-11.

Honeywell's Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS) gained attention as a piece of equipment that could have prevented the crash. Certified in 2003, RAAS provides aural alerts naming the runways as aircraft are on approach to the runway and when they are lined up on a given runway. It would have told the Comair pilots they were lined up on the wrong runway. RAAS is also an incursion/collision avoidance tool and is an $18,000 software update to the company's enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) technology. Some 600 units have been deployed with 55 percent in commercial aircraft. Seven hundred are on order, according to Honeywell. Also receiving attention is the Norris Electro Optical Systems' Autonomous Runway Incursion Prevention System (ARIPS) which successfully completed testing at Providence's T.F. Green Airport. An alerting system is on the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) Most Wanted list. The crash may also renew efforts for two other NTSB priorities: post-crash survivability, and the search for an elusive solution to mitigating post-crash fires.

Meanwhile, most of the attention has centered on controller staffing. The FAA previously issued a verbal message to facilities to ensure towers were staffed with two controllers at all times. Those not in compliance at the time of the accident included Duluth, Minn. and Fargo N.D. Just two weeks prior to the accident other airports were identified as out of compliance including Springfield, Mo., as well as Little Rock, Ark. and Tulsa, Okla.

Additional focus has been on controller duty time after it was revealed the controller had only two hours sleep. Controller duty time is limited to no more than 10 operational hours per shift, and they must have at least an eight-hour break from the time work ends to the start of any subsequent shift.

The accident came shortly after the FAA announced its latest Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan which calls for 11,800 controllers to be hired over next decade. The FAA expects to hire 930 controllers by the end of this fiscal year which ends on September 31 with another 1,130 additional controllers scheduled to be hired in the Fiscal 2007 budget. It has already hired 700 controllers this year from a pool of 3,700 candidates current available through various hiring sources. The new controllers will replace retiring personnel as well as add about 200 controllers to the workforce. Attrition and expected traffic growth are driving the new numbers.