Another Air France incident
 

Incident: Air France A319 at Sofia on Oct 16th 2012, rejected takeoff from taxiway

Rejected takeoff from twy.

Surely not!!

Well done to Sofia Tower for being alert to stop it happening.

I found the overhead picture of Sofia's airport to be of interest. My initial impression was "well, it is as wide as a runway ... easy mistake to make ... "

This post a bit further down by one of the commenters there cleared up some of my confusion.

What crossed my mind is the question of how often this crew had been to Sofia, and what went on during the pre-flight and pre-taxing crew briefings, what NAV/Chart data they had to hand, etcetera. I envision a less than joyful "tea and biscuits" session on return to home base.

On a more positive note, the alert controller caught them in time to avert anything worse than a red face or two. :ok: Well done.

EDIT: looks like firefly bob got ahead of me in the kudos department. :O

If you really want to stop incidents/accidents such as this you close as many holes in the cheese as possible, not just blame one party.

Given an "unusual" taxiway / runway width / layout as here, one step would be not to issue a takeoff clearance until an aircraft has crossed H?

It would be interesting to see the AF checklists and what the line up checks include. Some kind of FMS and navaid integrity cross check would almost definitely be included(?) to cross check departure position.

That said, the failure to verify visual cues (runway intersection holding point signage etc) is rather worrying.

The markings are quite clearly those of a taxiway and not a runway which, since it was CAVOK, makes you wonder what was going on in that FD? Amazing!

Somebody must have spiked their claret:ok:

N.O.D. Yes, that is a very. good. point.

But it would some require some kind of secondary cross-check to ensure the crews didn't just give it lip service...

Isn't that what professionalism is about?

The layout is not that unusual, a lot of airports have done the same reconstruction. Nice, for example, and they should be familiar with that one.
Toulouse and Lyon also have wide parallel taxiways, and runways without centerline lighting. Charles de gaulle is not a very structured airport, you really have to pay attention with all the K1 K3 and so on.

Well, we have paphos, on the last years is not unusual to land on the taxiway.

Airbus check:make sure the a/c symbol on the ND (Nav Display) is joining the runway on lining up. If not: wrong runway, taxiway or map shift.

Exactly. And how many (attempted) to take-off / land on the wrong runway? The answer is not "none" ;) We certainly had specific airfield notes warning against it. And why have NCE invested in the world's largest flashing 'X', that you can see from 20K' :eek:

Whether or not Taxiway H used to be a runway is irrelevant in this incident. The visibility was at 4000m so that's another excuse out the window. Runway 09 is equipped with HIRL and CL. There would be no trace of those on H. Never mind the fact that all the crew would see is a yellow line with (perhaps?) green taxi lights instead of a plethora bright HIALS cross bar lights due to a significantly displaced threshold on RW09.

What most likely happened is crew fatigue, complacency or just plain not paying attention. Perhaps they had more pressing matters to discuss? I know I'm certainly not holier than thou when it comes to that, especially with crews I'm very familiar and comfortable with.

You can blame the airport layout, ATC or invent MAP cross-check SOP's.
Or you could properly picture what exactly you should be seeing on line-up and then look out the window to verify that.

Just in from pub so usual caveats but -
Now that there has been an incident, what measures should be taken to ensure that this strip is clearly and unmistakably marked as a taxiway.
Would there have been a problem if they'd continued takeoff on the taxiway?

Potentially this type of incident could happen to any airline - as long as humans are involved there is a capacity for error. Fortunately in this case the error was picked up by ATC.

Of course we should continually seek ways to prevent future incidents such as lighting, signage etc and even better or more relevant training.

I would ask the question "Are you perfect?" - I suspect the honest answer would be "No" - then who are you to judge imperfection?

Am in no way making excuses for this crew. I am sure they are mortified by such an error.

I see this type of incident as a "system failure". Who are we to judge when we do not have any facts about what was going on at the time?

Rather than damning any airline or individuals we need to ask how we can prevent these incidents from ever occurring again?

Fench says it all...one language in the cockpit, English on the R/T with ATC, and looking forward to that split of wine with the crew meal...

Sofia airport is VEEEERY confusing. I, myself, felt very incline to taking off from this very same area only a while ago. It took my colleague's clear mind to get me back on the right path.

TWY H at Sofia is clearly marked as a taxyway, yellow centerline line, blue lamps and IIRR a green centerline lighting.

The way it got done was really the only way to build a proper new runway at the time, as any other upgrading / renewal of the old runway would have meant to close the airport for a few months.

I assume you have not been there. I am sure many would disagree with your statement that it is not that unusual a layout. What has Nice got to do with it - comparing them is like comparing chalk and cheese? The taxiway in Nice is not TWICE the width of the runways, and neither is it between them.

Not of any relevance to the topic we are discussing. The larg flashing X at Nice is ONLY used when there is WIP on one of the runways. It is NEVER used to highlight a taxiway.

I guess as someone who never makes mistakes, you never amaze yourself!


Runway incursions and events like this happen almost every day somewhere on the globe, and yes it is rather worrying, but pointing accusing fingers at one crew, or suggesting that they were not attentive or didn't have (or follow) appropriate SOPS is not the way to prevent future occurrences.


= the most sensible post IMO

Very defensive retort Sooty. Yes, I do amaze myself at times. Luckily not whilst in command of an airliner full of passengers. This could have been catastrophic. They are supposed to be highly trained professionals and whilst mistakes can occur due to sometimes understandable (though not acceptable) mitigating circumstances, on this occasion they must have been mightily distracted on this clear day with the actual runway clearly visible next to them. That they went as far as commencing the roll on a clearly identifyable taxiway is defenseless. Would you have felt the same if it had been catastrophic and your loved ones were on board?

Sooty and Firefly are onto it, probably two minutes before the incident that crew could never have believed they could make such a mistake and would also have been "amazed".
Now they know the reality. Stay humble.

I've seen one of these incidents in action. A 737 lined up on a big fat taxiway with a 777 rumbling towards it from the far end. Fortunately, ATC noticed and cleared the 777 off the taxiway and pointed out the error to the shocked crew.
Well said Framer. The reality is perfectly competent pilots make these errors. Therefore, in my view, it can happen to any other competent pilot.

Well, if that's your standard of competency it's time for me to stop flying! In my book a COMPETENT pilot should not make such an INCOMPETENT mistake as this.

That's just it though HTango.....they do. It's often not the bottom dwellers who sneak through their sim checks by the skin of their teeth that make these cock ups. It's Jo Bloggs who has been perfectly competent for years. Accepting that you could make the same mistake is half the battle.

As this incident took place at 0356Z in mid-October that is surely before daylight, so the visual references are only going to be the lighting and illuminated signage, not any perception of concrete which "looks like" a runway.

dawn was around 05:45 Zulu today in Sofia so yes - dark

Sooty
 

I fly to Sofia regularily. It has never occured to me, that it would be a difficult airport to taxi. I have been there in summer and winter, in sunshine, TS, snow, day and nighttime.

What does Nice have got to do with it? Well, maybe you haven't been flying for too long, but that southern runway is new, and the parallel taxiway used to be a runway...

taking off in an easterly direction, sunrise at rougly 5:00Z, so just before sunrise, but looking in an easterly direction into haze (vis 4k...), possibly after a nightduty... From a taxyway that used to be a runway... swiss chees, holes...

Nice since 1979, but whether its layout is new or old I still do not see the relevance.

The old northern runway at Nice is indeed a taxiway now, but it is not twice the width of one of the present runways, and neither is it situated between the two active runways.

Hotel Tango, I am struggling to comprehend your post. Are you suggesting that because you have such a high level of competence you are you not going to make a mistake of this magnitude - or any mistake?

Or perhaps you are suggesting that there are competent mistakes and incompetent mistakes - and that the only mistakes you make fall into the competent category?

If you don't believe that you have the potential to succumb to any of the psychological factors that effect human performance, then I would suggest you haven't learned much about flying yet.

Honeywell's "Smart Runway" system would have prevented this and many other similar events (Comair Lexington comes to mind).

I thought AF had RAAS on their fleet? A rather loud 'on taxiway, on taxiway!' would get their attention. The sooner RAAS is mandatory the better.

I' m not saying you're wrong Jo, but can you give us some facts and figures on that or is it just your perception?

Please provide data including which numerator and denominator you propose to use to justify such a wild claim

Ignore the data on PPruNe since we tend to make elephants out of ants behind our keyboards.

Maybe time for s/e asian countries to 'ban' AF? ok that might be a bit harsh (at the moment) but lets be honest their safety record is not exactly great is it ?given a choice as a passenger i would certainly avoid them like the plague.

Our airline has added a runway verification line to the checklist just before departure (below the line on the taxi check). We verify the runway listed in the FMC and verify the actual runway outside the window.

The reason for the addition was the number of runway specific RNAV fixes that we fly to on departure. There were some incidents of ATC switching departure runways after pushback and the crews not entering the new runway and new SID transition. But the runway check also serves to capture this type of error.

Downin3greens: One language? So at least speak it correctly, French, not Fench.

Those kind of mistakes are happening everywhere in the world by any kind of crew.

I admit I myself once took off from my friend' backyard... I was flying an Ultra Light though... ;)

A reminder: a taxi briefing should be done before the take off briefing, hope it helps...

Joe: but how long must PC dictate that the elephant in the room be ignored? - The conspicuously disproportionate number of serious incidents that occur amongst French operators, notably AF.

Incidents with non-AF? Which ones? Please explain!

Accidents and incidents with AF? Plenty :, Concorde in 2000, Toronto A340 (aircraft destroyed), Rio-Paris A330 in 2009 228 fatalities