Government staff investigating last summer's deadly Comair plane crash in Kentucky recommended enhancements in airport taxiway markings and cockpit map displays Thursday as a response to the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is deliberating the cause of the crash of Comair Flight 5191, which killed 49 of 50 people on board after the jet tried to depart from the wrong runway -- a general aviation strip too short for a proper takeoff. Although NTSB's five board members were to vote on a cause later in the day, the NTSB's proposed the airport changes earlier Thursday.
          NTSB staff concluded that the fact that the flight crew didn't have updated maps and notices alerting them to construction that had changed the taxiway route a week earlier was not a factor in the navigation error. Board member Deborah Hersman, who was the lead investigator on scene, suggested there were numerous causes -- nearly all of them human. "That's the frustration of this accident -- no single cause, no single solution and no 'aha' moment," Hersman said.
          About 25 relatives of crash victims gathered at a hotel in downtown Lexington on Thursday to watch a video link to the hearing. Melissa Byrd, whose brother, Ryan, died in the crash, said it has been "a very long year" and she didn't expect any surprises from the hearing. "Honestly, at this point, we don't care who's to blame," Byrd said. Commuter airline Comair has acknowledged at least some culpability. Pilots violated cockpit rules about extraneous conversation as they were going through their preflight checklist and may have been distracted as they steered the jet in the pre-dawn darkness onto the wrong runway.
          Unclear, however, is whether anyone beyond Comair will share blame from the government. Comair contends that the government itself -- specifically the Federal Aviation Administration, which runs the control tower at Blue Grass Airport -- also is partly responsible. At the time of the crash, only one controller staffed the tower, despite an FAA directive that at least two should keep watch.

Learn more about the 2006 Comair crash in Lexington, Kentucky and the rights of the families of victims of the accident.