LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that the negligence of two pilots who took off on the wrong runway was a “substantial factor” in the August 2006 crash of a Comair regional jet in Lexington.

U.S. District Judge Karl Forester’s ruling, issued Thursday evening in Lexington, arose in a case brought by the family of Bryan Keith Woodward, a Louisiana resident aboard the plane.

The ruling now leaves a jury to decide if Comair committed “gross negligence” in the crash of Comair 5191, which the National Transportation Safety Board has blamed largely on errors by the two pilots who guided the aircraft to the wrong runway at Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that the pilots’ failed to notice clues they were on the wrong runway. According to the NTSB, investigators found that the pilots failed to notice clues they were on a general aviation strip too short for a commercial plane to execute a proper takeoff.

“The possibility that other factors that may have also contributed to the crash does not preclude the conclusion that the pilots’ negligence was ’a substantial factor’ in producing the crash,” Forester wrote.

A jury will be asked next year to determine if Comair — a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, Inc. — should pay punitive damages. Forty-nine people were killed in the crash. Co-pilot James Polehinke was the lone survivor.

A jury previously awarded Woodward’s family $7.1 million in compensation and $750,000 for pain and suffering.

David Rapoport, the attorney for Woodward’s family, said the ruling isn’t surprising, given the jury’s recent damage award.

“Nevertheless the ruling is important because it is the first judicial determination that the negligence of Comair’s pilots was a substantial factor causing the crash, a ruling Comair may have avoided forever if Mr. Woodward’s family had chosen to settle like the rest of the passenger families,” Rapoport said.

A message left with the Comair press office was not immediately returned Friday.

Last year, jury selection in a massive case against Comair was called off when financial settlements were reached between Comair and all but two families of the 47 passengers who died. One of those settled a few weeks later, leaving only the Woodward case, filed by his wife, Jamie Hebert, and two daughters, Lauren Madison Hebert, 19, and Mattie-Kay Hebert, 15.

Woodward, 39, and his family lived near Lafayette, La., where he was an electrician who often worked on offshore oil rigs. He was on his way to Atlanta for a connecting flight when the plane crashed.

The Heberts, who run a convenience store, were always less interested in money than the principle of forcing Comair into taking blame for the crash, Rapoport said.

The amounts of all settlements reached with the other passenger families were kept confidential. There are still legal matters pending with the families of the two pilots, Jeffrey Clay, who died in the crash, and Polehinke.
 

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