I remember reading and being fascinated by the story of the Lulsgate cowboy in Flight Magazine in the days when I bought it and started at the back to look at the pilot job vacancies.
Other interesting stories where the plane failed to get airborne by the end of the runway and took out lights before staggering into the air are the Afghanistan DC-8 that took off in 2010 from Manston 25,000 lbs too heavy for the conditions
https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/doug...11-august-2010
Also the Pan Am 747 at San Francisco in 1971 where the pilots got the takeoff calculations wrong.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_845
Having flown the 747 Classic I do remember how complicated it was to work out the figures on the takeoff proforma.