Sometimes it takes more courage to stay on the ground waiting for weather to pass over than trusting to luck and taking off. For example being No 4 waiting in turn at the holding point and watching the aircraft in front of you blast off into stormy weather while you try to evaluate the storm on your radar before it is your turn to line and up and wait. Now lined up, you get a closer look at the storm on your radar and you really don't like what you see.
As the captain of any aircraft, whether it be a airliner or a lightie, you now have to make a decision. Do I go and hope for the best - or do I request permission to vacate the runway and hold somewhere until the storm passes? All the other aircraft have disappeared up into the murk and all you can see on the runway as you are lined up next to go, are clouds of steam still obscuring the runway in the heavy rain from the heat of jet engines at full power. It is an awesome sight that often adds to the drama.
You decide based on experience that you will go with the gut feeling and meekly ask ATC that you wish to vacate now and hold. ATC directs you to a holding bay and the next aircraft behind you in the queue lines up. He is a Chinese carrier and nothing frightens him and he blasts off into the murk as well.
So far, no Mayday calls from the heroes ahead. Safely at the holding point somewhere on the airport, you begin to feel slightly guilty and a bit foolish and ask yourself are you losing your nerve for not taking off when everyone else has got away with it? Well, you shouldn't feel foolish. The others trusted to luck and maybe they were more worried about management's reaction about damaging the company on-time departure statistics than the violence of a thunderstorm overhead.
In another era, I was a dead heading observing pilot in the jump seat during landing in a typhoon affected Western Pacific island. I had been on duty for over 15 hours except observer status was not counted as duty time in that airline. We should never have been in that situation in the first place and could have easily diverted to a weather clear alternate well before ETA at the destination. The captain was very experienced but known to be slow in making decisions. Despite warnings from ATC that our destination airport was in the grip of 50-70 wind gusts in heavy rain he had this "it couldn't happen to me" attitude and so he pressed on. ATC said "Clear to land - but be aware possible debris on the runway and we cannot see the runway because we are all boarded up."
At touch down, the wind had abated somewhat but the weather was coming through in gusts with blinding rain. We arrived at the airport terminal and a crew change occurred. I was to continue dead heading to our final destination 1500 miles away over the Pacific. The new promoted captain for this sector arrived at the aircraft and announced he intended to depart since the centre of the typhoon was still 100nm away. I was appalled at his decision but was carried along with the speed of events and stayed aboard. We taxied for take off wind 45 gusting to 70 knots and heavy rain reducing vis to 300 metres at times.
The female ATC must have been astounded that we were actually going to depart in such weather because she said "Clear for take off- expect possibility of compressor stalls and debris on the runway." Compressor stall warning was a new one to me until I remembered the airport was a joint military and civil international airport and the ATC was American military.
It was midnight as we lined up and we were being shaken by massive wind gusts and suddenly the visibility was reduced to zero by the windscreen being covered in a seemingly wall of water. The first officer had kept quiet while all this was going on but now he spoke up saying we should not take off in such weather.
From the jump seat I added to his concern by saying that we could never answer to a court of inquiry if things went wrong. Faced with dissension in the ranks the captain relented and we taxied back to the terminal, much to my relief. The captain ordered everyone to stay aboard while to rushed to the Met Office. He was back inside ten minutes saying "We are going again - the typhoon centre is still 80 miles away.
I had this foreboding we weren't going to be so lucky this time around and told the captain I had been on duty for many hours as an observer and was so tired I could not continue and I was going to the pub for the night. The captain almost certainly didn't realise I was simply scared stiff that he really intended to depart in such dangerous weather conditions and that I wanted out right now. There was no time to get my bag from the cargo hold and I left the aircraft there and then. The last I saw of the aircraft was its strobe lights vanishing on the blinding rain and darkness and I silently wished the passengers and crew the best of luck.
A Customs and Immigration official drove me to the hotel where all windows had been boarded up. All I had was the clothes on me which were soaking wet. On the following day a company aircraft arrived on its normal schedule and by then the weather had abated. I dead headed on that flight home.
It turned out that my original aircraft had got away safely (?) after experiencing severe turbulence on the initial climb-out and after leaving the storm clouds behind, enjoyed a trouble free flight to its destination. My later explanation to the chief pilot that I had stayed on the ground at destination XYZ because I had been on duty for well over the legal time and was fatigued, was accepted and no one had any inkling of the real reason I left the aircraft when I did. The new captain meanwhile had been congratulated on a job well done by getting the aircraft out of the typhoon affected island and everyone went home happy. No reports were filed and no questions asked.
The point of this story is that it is no shame if a pilot decides to sit out bad weather while others decided to risk it and go.