Preliminary flight data from Comair Flight 5191's black box recorders and the damage at the scene indicate the plane, a CRJ-100 regional jet, took off from the shortest runway at Lexington's Blue Grass Airport, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said.

The Atlanta-bound plane plowed through a perimeter fence and crashed in a field about a kilometre from the end of that runway at about 6:07 a.m. Aerial images of the crash site in the rolling hills of Kentucky's horse country showed trees damaged at the end of the short runway and the nose of the plane almost parallel to the small strip.

"We are absolutely, totally committed to doing everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident," [Don Bornhorst] said. "One of the most damaging things that can happen to an investigation of this magnitude is for speculation or for us to guess at what may be happening."