"...Expect immediately take-off..."

[Denny Yen 0]

This incident occured last weekend at New Chitose airport in Hokkaido. A JAL 747 started its take-off roll and stopped 1,800m behind an MD-90 that has just landed. ATC instructions were "....expect immediately take-off..." but when the 747 started rolling, ground radar warned ATC which commanded the pilot to halt.

 

http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/news/society/76618_all.html

 

As per NHK's Japanese news, the translations say "....expect immediately take-off..." not "...prepare for immediate take-off..." as translated by AP.

 

However, it emerged that the Capt's concerns' over deicing fluid's effect wearing off may have possibly explained why he took-off immediately.

 

AP/The Yomiuri Shimbun

 

Flight 502 sits on the tarmac at New Chitose Airport, Hokkaido, on Saturday evening.SAPPORO--The close shave at Hokkaido's New Chitose Airport on Saturday in which a Japan Airlines jumbo jet nearly rear-ended another plane on the runway occurred despite a JAL operations manual that stipulates the captain and copilot must confirm with each other air traffic control instructions on landing, taking off or entering runways.

 

The operations manual included this stipulation after a similar incident in January 2005 in which a JAL plane started taking off without permission at the same airport when visibility was poor because of driving snow.

 

Saturday's near miss has prompted aviation industry experts to wonder why the airline repeated the same mistake.

 

An air traffic controller instructed Flight 502--a Boeing 747-400 bound for Tokyo's Haneda Airport with 446 passengers and crew aboard--to enter the runway and wait for instructions to take off at about 10:30 a.m.

 

"Prepare for immediate takeoff. An aircraft has just landed and is on the runway," the controller told the pilot. "There's a plane behind you at a distance of 10 kilometers making its final landing approach."

 

The pilot responded by saying, "Roger." The pilot then applied full thrust and started the plane's takeoff run.

 

A controller told the pilot to abort the takeoff immediately after noticing on the ground surveillance radar it had started its takeoff run without permission.

 

Flight 502 made an emergency stop and came to a halt about 1,800 meters behind another JAL passenger jet--Flight 2503, an MD-90 with 126 passengers and crew--that had just arrived from Kansai Airport.

 

Visibility at the time was about 500 meters, and it appears that the crew of the 747 was unable to see the MD-90.

 

"I thought we had permission to take off," a crew member said, explaining why the plane began its takeoff without authorization.

 

Mishearing instructions from the control tower is a possible cause of the near-miss. It is also possible that the heavy snow had delayed the plane far behind its scheduled departure time, the crew members were in a hurry to get the plane into the air.

 

The Construction and Transport Ministry has also instructed airlines and airports that, when necessary, crew members should repeat all instructions from air traffic control to confirm that they have understood them, but it has no rules concerning in what specific situations such confirmation should be made.

 

"The method of confirmation and other matters need to be clarified," a ministry spokesman said.

 

Meanwhile, some passengers expressed anger that JAL kept them in the dark about the incident.

 

One passenger said the captain made a short announcement that air traffic control had instructed him not to take off.

 

A crew member then announced that the plane would return temporarily to the parking apron. But the plane could not depart because of the heavy snow, and the flight was eventually canceled just after 2 p.m.

 

Passengers on the flight later left for Haneda on a different aircraft.

 

"As well as being confined inside the airplane like a sardine, I missed my scheduled connection," one passenger said. "No explanation was given about the incident."

 

AP/The Yomiuri Shimbun

 

SAPPORO--The captain of a Japan Airlines jumbo jet that nearly rear-ended another plane on the runway at Hokkaido's New Chitose Airport on Saturday after starting its takeoff run without permission has told investigators he misheard an instruction from the control tower to wait as permission to take off, it has been learned.

 

The Construction and Transport Ministry's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission found a recording in the cockpit voice recorder from air traffic control saying, "Prepare for immediate takeoff."

 

The commission was investigating the fact that the captain and crew on Flight 502--a Boeing 747-400 bound for Tokyo's Haneda Airport with 446 passengers and crew on board--may not have been paying sufficient attention to communications from the control tower.

 

Recordings in the cockpit voice recorder and a record of communications received from the control tower clearly confirm that air traffic control instructed the pilot to wait. The control tower instructed Flight 502 in English at about 10:30 a.m. to "Enter Runway B and wait," and shortly after to "Prepare for immediate takeoff. An aircraft has just landed and is on the runway."

 

According to the commission and other sources, the cockpit voice recorder and the record of communications were clear, and the instruction to "prepare" also could be clearly heard.

 

However, despite another passenger plane being on the runway in front of Flight 502, the pilot responded: "Roger." At 10:33 a.m. he applied full thrust and started the plane's takeoff run.

 

Immediately prior to a takeoff, the captain and crew must check that navigational equipment settings, safety devices and other cockpit controls are functioning.

 

The commission believes it is likely the captain and crew might not have been paying sufficient attention to air traffic control communications because they were performing these checks.

 

It will further analyze items such as the flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder to get a clearer picture of the situation in the cockpit at the time.

 

===

 

Concerns over deicing fluid

 

 

The captain might also have been eager to get the plane airborne due to concerns prior to takeoff over the holdover time of the deicing fluid sprayed onto the plane's body, the commission and other sources said.

 

The commission was investigating the possibility that the captain and crew mistook the communication--amid driving snow and visibility of 500 meters--because they wanted to depart while the fluid was still effective enough to keep the snow off the plane's wings.

 

If snow sticks to parts of an aircraft's main wings or other key body parts, the plane cannot gain sufficient lift and is unable to take off.

 

To prevent this, the aircraft's body is sprayed with a highly viscous deicing fluid before it takes off in conditions such as snow. After spraying, the snow sticks to the aircraft's body for a certain period of time while taxiing, but is blown off by the strong winds generated during takeoff.

 

According to the commission and other sources, a fluid with a holdover time of between 45 minutes and 80 minutes was used.

 

Flight 502 was scheduled to depart at 9:05 a.m., but work to clear snow from the runway took longer than expected, and the ground crew started to spray the aircraft with the fluid at 9:27 a.m.

 

The heavy snow meant that one of the airport's two runways was closed, and Flight 502 left the parking apron about 30 minutes after spray work began.

 

In cases when it is feared the fluid may have become ineffective, the aircraft must return to the apron for a respray.

 

The plane's crew did not notice snow on the aircraft's main wings or other body parts when they looked out from windows in the passenger compartment, and the captain decided that a respray was not necessary.

 

The plane then waited in line on the taxiway in preparation for takeoff.

 

However, it was after 10:30 a.m. by the time permission was granted to enter the runway--about one hour after deicing fluid was first sprayed onto the aircraft's body.

 

The commission believes it likely the captain and crew were in a hurry to get the plane off the ground quickly because the deicing fluid's holdover time was running out.

 

A similar incident in which a JAL aircraft started its takeoff run without permission took place at the same airport in January 2005. The crew in that incident also were concerned about how long the deicing fluid would remain effective and mistook instructions from the control tower as meaning they had permission to take off.

Edited February 21, 2008 by Denny Yen

[Samuel Chy 0]

sound like the Tenerife collision... but fortunately this time ATC notice that before the disaster... touchwood...

[S V Choong 4]

Don't they have two runways at Shin Chitose Airport?

 

Shin Chitose definitely known as one of the airport with harshest weather conditions.

[Kevin Teh 0]

Don't they have two runways at Shin Chitose Airport?

 

Shin Chitose definitely known as one of the airport with harshest weather conditions.

 

i believe in the news it says the other runway is closed.