Originally Posted by
aerobat77
at an international airport
-you would get every attention when you startup the engines without any startup clearance and with no flightplan of this aircraft in the system
- you would surely trigger a full blown alert when you start to taxi an aircraft without radio communication to ground , without startup and taxi clearance and without any flightplan issued .
i,m wondering how he made it to takeoff position on the runway ??? i would expect you would be blocked with e.g a fire truck to reach the runway in such a case
Startup clearance is not required at US airports. They use gate hold procedures, when required. In any case, I don't believe that startup clearance is a mechanism designed to thwart the theft of aircraft. I believe it is a mechanism designed to avoid ground congestion, conserve fuel to avoid ground turnbacks due to insufficient fuel, limit unnecessary noise, prevent baggage and fueling operations from being impeded, etc. Also, I seriously doubt that the fire brigade has trained on a procedure for stopping aircraft. The airport is not Hollywood. It is a professional workplace. There have been umpteen million legitimate airport movements worldwide for every one of these type events. You cannot plan for every possibility. To do so, would be ever more expensive and cumbersome. To dream up solutions for this highly-specific and rarely-occurring problem is easy. To come up with solutions for the broader issue, mental health, is much tougher -- but the payoff would be much higher.