It has become standard practice for most airlines when lined up for takeoff
to call out and confirm the runway heading and any pertinent immediate
profile data. If that aircraft has a setable heading bug on the HSI most
operators set the runway heading during preflight. If so, it wouldn't have
been lined up correctly when they began their takeoff.

--
Darrell R. Schmidt
B-58 Hustler History: (see below)
http://members.cox.net/dschmidt1/

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
oups.com...
I am getting tired of comments like "controller should have warned the
pilots", or "taxiway was confusing", or "runway lights were off" etc..
One could not find a better example of a pure and simple pilot error.
The runway was clear, the weather was VFR, and the airplane was working
fine. It is highly likely that this was the only airplane maneuvering
at the airport. Even if the controller had cleared him to takeoff on
runway 26, the responsibility would have been on the pilot to decline
that clearance. Yet, a perfectly good airplane was run off the runway
and ploughed into the woods.

NTSB is investigating whether the pilots had coffee that morning, and
how much sleep they got. This is a futile exercise. Taxiing and
departing from a relatively quiet airport under VFR conditions is an
extremely low workload situation. We are not talking about shooting a
non-precision approach to minimums in a thunderstorm after a full day
of flying. A pilot should be able to do this even if he had partied all
night at the bar. What happened was gross negligence.

I shudder to think that my wife and baby flew the Comair CRJ only a few
days prior to this accident. Fortunately they are flying back with me
in our trusty GA airplane. I feel a lot better about it than trusting
my family to stupid mistakes that even my students pilots know how to
avoid. I sincerely feel for those who lost loved ones. They have the
right be very angry. I am angry, and I did not lose anything.