I have had a look with GURU now and the departure off 14 is limited by a 171 foot high obstacle 15761 feet from the runway head. It is not possible as a normal performance take off but my company allow a bleeds off departure (some dont) and that would allow a departure off 14. That said, the prevailing weather and temperature may not have allowed it - its pretty marginal. Someone in this thread said something about see and avoid - surely no company allows that kind of thing any more!
I am very surprised that the IFR clearance that was discussed on the ground wasn't passed to the controller because a simple teardrop after departure would have allowed the connection to the IFR plan. All of this confusion happened because there was no connection between the IFR plan and clearance and the VFR departure. I agree that the crew could have done better and I don’t think the controller did anything wrong other than allow a heavily laden jet to depart without having any idea what it was up to.
Lost comms, 7600 and go and hold somewhere out of the way to burn off fuel (useless bay would seem appropriate). There are three VHF radios, two HF radios, CPDLC and usually a satphone on a global. Plus a bagful of cellphones. Wouldn’t be out of contact for long.
People saying “er” a lot are processing information. It was very clear that those pilots were working out what was being asked of them. They had discussed their IFR on the ground and it was not unreasonable for them to expect that the tower controller would at least know their destination. I doubt I have ever taken off in a global and the tower not known where I was headed for.
anyway, I am headed west in a couple of days. Lets see what carnage I can cause!