Etihad A330 straddles runway edge lights in low vis takeoff at AUH
Just before midnight Z in Abu Dhabi on 29th Jan EY45 an Etihad flight to Dublin lined up on R/W 31L. Low vis procedures were in force with RVRs of 150 meters to 200 meters. The crew mistook the runway edge lights for the runway centreline lights and straddled them.
The flight aborted takeoff with a burst nose wheel. It had damaged 11 runway edge lights. The tug had difficulty finding the aircraft and said the visibility was about 20 meters. The aircraft was eventually towed back on to stand. The ground vehicle said there was considerable debris and broken glass on the runway. The runway was swept.
ATC would not allow any aircraft to take off as the runway lighting was damaged. Requests to take off from the opposite direction or intersections were denied.
ATC said that the other runway 31R could be used for takeoff but only if RVR's were above 550 meters. This did not happen until well after sunrise.
The incident in effect stopped all aircraft movements for 4 hours leading to numerous cancelled flights.