Had a look at the preliminary report into the MAS and Bamboo airlines runway excursions taking off from Melbourne during the reduced runway length operations. I saw that the Bamboo Airlines flight had the PIC sitting in the jump seat for take-off:
On 18 September 2023 at 2230, a Bamboo Airways Boeing 787-9 aircraft, registered VN-A819, was being prepared to depart Melbourne Airport for scheduled passenger transport flight QH83 to Hanoi, Vietnam. There were 3 flight crew, who were assigned the roles (according to the operator’s terminology) of pilot in command (PIC), PM, and PF.[15] For this flight, the PIC sat in the jump seat behind the pilots at the controls, the PM sat in the left pilot’s seat and the PF sat on the right.
Is this just the ATSB not understanding that a Check Captain sitting in the jump seat is not the PIC or is this an alarming trend in crew configurations for departure? I am hoping its the former. There is also the twin problems of not understanding NOTAMS and the volume of NOTAMS that are issued for Australian airports.