Originally Posted by Rockhound
Hallo The Passenger,
The KLM captain began his takeoff roll, apparently believing he had received TO clearance (very likely his belief was furthered by time constraints to complete the flight).
It seems clear that the captain, who, as you know, was an experienced training captain at KLM, had no doubts he had TO clearance.
Obviously that was his mistake!
Of course, the possibility remains that the KLM captain did deliberately attempt takeoff without clearance but, from all the evidence, this seems most unlikely.
I
donīt think he did this on purpose (but of course no one will ever know).
Unquestionably, it was pilot error but, as usual, not ascribable to a single cause or mistake (certainly not to "Spanish factors"). Once again, enough holes in the Swiss cheese lined up.
I canīt remember the details and have no way to look them up at the moment - but werenīt there some rumours that they watched a soccer-game in the tower?