Originally Posted by
airsouthwest
and besides that, dragging an aircraft on or near an active runway in good visibility would have brought a lot of attention from people across the airport.
Some article out of the multitude used "runway" as the only word the author knows for paved surface at an airport (as I'm sure some other article used "tarmac.")
He pushed back and started on a ramp/apron. Just like any other flight. And this one is uncontrolled. Then he taxied several airplane lengths to the runway.
There's no mystery to solve.