China: Unsanctioned takeoff by Chinese airliner (stay away from China Eastern Airlines)

APAN'S air watchdog is investigating an apparently hazardous take-off by a Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines plane, which was done against permission of the airport control tower.

The Japanese air traffic authority said it seeks to find out exactly why the Chinese plane appeared to have ignored the order to stay on hold on the runway and took off instead on Monday. China Eastern officials said yesterday they had already contacted the Japanese authority conducting the probe.

The Japanese air traffic authority said the Chinese plane, carrying 240 passengers, took off about 1:45pm from the Kansai Airport. Minutes before, the terminal tower had ordered the plane to wait on the runway, said the Japanese authority, which said the order was delivered in English.

But the Chinese plane suddenly took off and left the airport when the traffic controllers moved on to communicate with the pilot of a helicopter, said the Japanese authority.

The Japanese watchdog said that judging by the result, the Chinese plane's takeoff did not create a safety issue. But investigators want to know, among other things, whether the pilots deliberately ignored the order or the incident was caused by a communication lapse.

Anyone remember this incident? Took off from a taxiway instead of runway!!!

Anchorage Daily News

(Published: January 26, 2002) . .A China Airlines air bus carrying 254 passengers and crew members narrowly avoided catastrophe early Friday when pilots took off in the wrong direction and on a taxiway instead of a runway at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

In its takeoff just before 3 a.m., the plane came so close to running out of taxiway that its landing gear clipped a snow berm at the pavement’s end before it gained altitude over Cook Inlet and flew on to Taipei, according to federal investigators.

“I think it’s safe to say disaster was averted by inches,” said Jim LaBelle, Alaska’s top official with the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that mounted an investigation Friday.

Taxiways and runways at the airport have different lights, striping and signs to help pilots distinguish between the two. Runways have white edge lights and center line lights, along with painted white edge lines and white dashes down the center. Taxiways have blue edge lights, painted yellow edge lines and green center line lights.

Or how about this one???

In 1983, a Korean Air Lines cargo jet beginning its takeoff in the wrong direction on the wrong runway smashed into a Kenai-bound commuter plane in heavy fog at Anchorage. No one was killed. Investigators mainly faulted the Korean Airlines pilot for failing to follow procedures.

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