On the morning of August 27, 2006, at around 06:07 EDT (10:07 UTC),[2]: 1  the Bombardier CRJ100ER crashed while attempting to take off from Blue Grass Airport in Fayette County, Kentucky, 4 miles (6.4 km; 3.5 nmi) west of the central business district of the city of Lexington.

It was the second-deadliest accident involving the CRJ100/200 after China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210, which had crashed two years earlier and claimed 55 lives.

[3] The flight's first officer, James Polehinke, was the pilot flying at the time of the accident and was the sole survivor;[4][5][6] however, Captain Jeffrey Clay was responsible for taxiing to the wrong runway.

[2]: 15 [13] Clay replied in agreement, but the flight data recorder offered no indication that either pilot had tried to abort the takeoff as the aircraft accelerated to 137 knots (158 mph; 254 km/h).

It then struck a low earthen wall adjacent to a ditch, briefly leaving the ground,[13] clipped the airport perimeter fence with its landing gear and smashed into trees, separating the fuselage and flight deck from the tail.

[18] James Polehinke, the first officer, suffered serious injuries, including multiple broken bones, a collapsed lung and severe bleeding.

In May, acting on another NTSB recommendation, the FAA advised that pilot training should include specific guidance on runway-lighting requirements for takeoff at night.

[2]: 92 [29] In July 2007, a Comair flying instructor testified that he would have failed both pilots for violating sterile flight deck rules.

[2]: 65 During a public meeting on July 26, 2007, the NTSB announced the probable cause of the accident: The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the flight crew members' failure to use available cues and aids to identify the airplane's location on the airport surface during taxi and their failure to cross-check and verify that the airplane was on the correct runway before takeoff.

Contributing to the accident were the flight crew's nonpertinent conversations during taxi, which resulted in a loss of positional awareness and the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to require that all runway crossings be authorized only by specific air traffic control clearances.

[7] Clay's widow strongly opposes the NTSB's assessment blaming the pilots, stating that other factors contributed, "including an understaffed control tower and an inaccurate runway map.

Three sample cases were to be heard on August 4, 2008, but the trial was indefinitely postponed after Comair reached a settlement with the majority of the families.

Comair sued the airport authority over its runway signs and markings as well as the FAA, which had only one air traffic controller on duty, contrary to a memo that it had previously issued requiring two workers on overnight shifts.

[42] The case against the airport authority was dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds, and this ruling was upheld by the Kentucky Supreme Court on October 1, 2009.

After a four-day jury trial in Lexington that ended on December 7, 2009, the estate and daughters of 39‑year‑old victim Bryan Woodward were awarded compensatory damages in the amount of $7.1 million.

[45] In that trial, a different jury was to decide whether Comair was guilty of gross negligence that was a substantial factor causing the crash and, if so, the punitive damages to assess.

[40] The decision to allow a jury trial was reversed in a later hearing, with the judge ruling that the company could not be punished for the "reprehensible conduct" of its pilots.