Eurolot pilots took off from taxiway
 

"Lost in the mist":
Wroc

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Atr
 

Crew has been suspended UFN. Reported metar was 350m, and the taxiway is only about 100m from the threshold. Hmmmm

Did they atually liftoff or did they stop?

When did they realize their mistake?

Were any vehicles in the way, how close?

from the Google picture on press article it shows a six month old picture, as you can see it is grass in front of the future terminal building ! (and construction of car park spaces on the street side). Furthermore this is the runway 11 (opposite direction) that you see.

Taxiway Bravo is a parallel taxiway to runway 11/29 , but since six month , and construction of the apron for the future terminal, it is not used and only half of it is used to park aircraft (on top of construction material this aircraft could have hit a parked aircraft on the taxiway...)

Anyway, from the actual stand/apron taxiway to runway 29 you do not need to use this taxiway, when you get out of the apron you just have to taxi straight to the threshold 29 a few hundread meters. by mid distance there is only one taxiway intersection at 90°, this is this taxiway bravo, BUT it has blue lights on the side, no markings, only 30m width, etc...

What surprises me the most it that Eurolot has a small network , just a few airports, they know Wroclaw very well, the design of the airport taxiway/runway/apron is extremely simple at Wroclaw, so taking off from taxiway bravo in WRO for a Eurolot crew seems really really strange !!
However I have already personnally see some Eurolot ATR doing some really really stupid and dangerous things... (like very very low pass, 10/20ft after airborne over runway Gear up with pax on board:=) I regret now not having made a report earlier :*

Yes, they actually did take off from taxiway.

Reminds my of Conir 5191 at Lexington, Kentucky where they took off on the wrong (too short) runway and killed all souls aboard except for the undisciplined, none too bright, F/O.

A close professional associate of mine's brother-in-law was on that airplane.

Thanks, but no thanks to "Fresno Sewer Pipes" for me.

And another one... Punishing pilots won't stop this from reoccurring. We need something else before someone gets hurt. How about "rumble strips" (definitely not speed bumps) carved across taxiways. Just for the hell of it, you could make them say something (silly) in morse (like - .. -). Place them 50m from every exit and corner. Design them to make make a nice noise if you 'hit' them above 30 kts.

PM

Did ATC have SMR?
Was there a pair of eyes in the VCR to monitor the SMR display?

A bad day for the pilots, thankfully no tragedy from this. A lesson and a reminder for us all; **** do happen every now and then...to mitigate the threats in such a scenario require utmost vigilance and discipline.

My guess is no, since regional airports of this size seldom have the funds for it.

SMR ?!? man you are in Poland !! they don't even have radar (yet) for the approach in Wroclaw !!

It needs proper signs at WRO for taxiways (not so many taxiways in WRO!), hold short position illuminated on both side of runway(nothing on north side), a bloody centerline light on the runway, nothing more, well that means money, and in Poland they don't have much... (and some pilots to scratch their heads when they take off with blue lights on the side :confused:)
when you take off in low vis it is also wise to have the LLZ centered (WRO has ILS on 29)

There is a fantastic system with synthetic voice that says ("approaching runway XX", "On runway XX", I can't remeber the name of that system, I already heard it on a Luthansa 737, impressive ! (I think it works with localizers , not with Gps), both an excellent safety equipment for runway incursion and runways/taxiways confusions.

I was not aware of any aircraft manufactured in Fresno. Please educate me.

arc-en-ciel, that system is called: Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS)

We have it in our little Cessna Citation Sovereign and when doing more than 40 knots on a taxiway, you get a real loud call "on taxiway, on taxiway".

I was just a software upgrade in our airplane (worth 23.000USD), apparently the EGPWS already has all required navdata to know when you´re not on a rwy...it uses the GPS actually. It also warns you when you approach a taxiway. (on approach)

SKYbrary - Runway Awareness and Advisory System (RAAS)

RAAS Certifications & Descriptions - EGPWS - Honeywell Aerospace

Caboclo:

Yeah, right.

His dudeness,
thanks for that, RAAS indeed, I would love to have this in my plane also, I will ask the management or the "authority", not so sure about the answer:(

I think we need to forget ( about all these fancy GPS/What have you systems and get back to basics, where pilots actually piloted aircraft...

IE, be in the right place at the right time on you're own reckoning

Simplistic response but basically true?

RAAS! Another FLA (four letter abbreviation) that most airlines don't give a fcuk (FLA) about!

Can anyone here advise if they know of ANY airline that has RAAS installed?

No?.....Oh what a bean-counting surprise!!! :ugh: I bet most have never heard of it, or even know that it is equipped on a significant percentage of private/corporate jets.

As a pre-cursor to those who may wish to jump on the "how could this possibly happen at a single runway airport" bandwagon, I suggest, as a start, they acquaint themselves with the Jeppp or AIP plates of the airport, and the NOTAMS that were in place, before even THINKING of apportioning any blame. It will take more than a "casual briefing" to spot the potential traps that many of us may have missed at such a fully ICAO approved, licensed and compliant airport on this particular foggy morning.

As for the "localiser prior to line up" practice, do any of you have this as a SOP applicable to single r/w airports...in daylight? I doubt it.

There is much more to this story than meets the eye, and I have good reason, and hope, that this crew will not get hung out to dry.

Mini........you are a dork!

Emirates does.

In LWMO, our SOPs require us to check the LOC needle is central when lined up. That's a huge clue - the Airbus FBW types actually tune the ILS for you as an aid.

However, this is of course not foolproof. The crew of SQ6 which took off from a taxiway at TPE in about 2000 actually had manually tuned the ILS as per their SOPs because the ir LWMO instructed them to as they had Para Visual Displays (PVDs) fitted to their aircraft. The F/O pointed out that when they were lined up the PVDs were still rotating, the Captain chose to ignore the comment and the rest is history.