From our NBC news here today in Anchorage

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Members of the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating a close call early Friday morning at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

A China Airlines passenger plane with 250 people onboard took off in the wrong direction and on a taxiway, rather than a runway.
The plane was directed to take off on the northbound runway, instead, it took off on the westbound taxiway.
Investigators are calling the incident "quite serious."
"What makes it more complex is this is a foreign crew that's now in a foreign country. So, we will begin a coordination process with the investigative agency from Taipei, to kind of round out the issues about crew statements and those kinds of things," said Scott Erickson with NTSB.
The plane did take off without incident. Investigators said the plane's landing gear did graze a snow berm.
The NTSB will now listen to tapes of the audio transmission to find out what went wrong.

While I'm happy to hear this event didn't turn tragic, I can't help wondering what all these Chinese folks are doing in Alaska. Something special going on we should know about?

Alaska is the major gas stop and cargo hub for quite a few international flights going to China etc...

Makes sense, now that I think about it.

I suppose in Alaska you guys are fairly accomplished at de-icing wings? I say this because here we recently noted the 20th anniversary of the Air Florida crash in D.C., where a 737 hit the 14th Street bridge and sunk in the Potomac River shortly after take-off. Its altitude at that point should have been 400 feet, but it never made it to 100 feet. The cause: ice on the wings. I lost a friend on that flight.

They are in Washington too...

I remember needing to catch a flight from Spokane to Seattle a few years back when the passes were all blocked by snow. The plan was a little 50 seat 'puddle jumper' twin prop. The snow was falling while they de-iced, and when it eventually took off, the runway was invisible (to me). Just a flatter bit of white in a world full of white.

Credit to the pilot in my opinion... kind of a spooky experience to go through, especially being from the sub-tropic myself :)

Greg Moore

I watched a report about near misses and confusion between pilots and air traffic controllers due to language, and it was a bit scary. Communication can break down when people don't speak the same lingo or have accents that are a bit thick, plus add that it is a radio transmission and there are other conversations coming in, and it is a wonder that more problems don't happen.

Originally posted by Chicken
I watched a report about near misses and confusion between pilots and air traffic controllers due to language, and it was a bit scary. Communication can break down when people don't speak the same lingo or have accents that are a bit thick, plus add that it is a radio transmission and there are other conversations coming in, and it is a wonder that more problems don't happen.

Aren't they supposed to re-confirm their instructions to the control tower?
Or is their accent so thick that the air controller simply gives up?

I'm not sure exactly, but they said the problem was that there were multiple transmissions closely broadcast together (too much going on at once), language barrier (not entirely understanding the words either from the tower or from the cockpit), or that they sometimes heard but misunderstood the instuctions (as it appears in the case above), or a combination of the above. This is unrelated to simple human error, which happens as well I'm sure, and unrelated to poor runway markings (either time worn or just confusing), which must add to the problem.

Wouldn't be the first time. On march 27 1977 on the airport of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) a Dutch KLM Boeing 747 tried to take off at the same time and at the same runway as a PanAm 747 tried to land there.

While at full speed but still on the runway the PanAm 747 landed on top of the KLM 747.

575 people died

Originally posted by Chicken
I watched a report about near misses and confusion between pilots and air traffic controllers due to language, and it was a bit scary.

...trying to picture how scary it can be...


Originally posted by Chicken
[...]multiple transmissions closely broadcast together[...]language barrier [...]or that they sometimes heard but misunderstood the instuctions[...]poor runway markings (either time worn or just confusing), which must add to the problem.

YIKES!

OK, I'm convinced. Couldn't get any more scary than that.

Jet narrowly escapes disaster
WRONG WAY: China Airlines passenger jet clips snow berm after misguided takeoff.


By Zaz Hollander
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.

Controllers instructed the China Airlines pilots to take off from a north-south runway but instead they used an east-west taxiway. Investigators and a China Airlines official say they still don't know why.

China Airlines is mounting an investigation of its own, said Hamilton Liu, the company's station manager at Anchorage. NTSB officials had already visited the company's head offices in Taipei by Friday afternoon.

Liu said it was too early to jump to conclusions.

"We don't know what actually happened yet," he said. "I'm waiting for their report, too."

The federal investigation will center on transcripts of air traffic control tower tapes, flight data recorder information and testimony from pilots. That information was unavailable Friday.

But air traffic controllers and Federal Aviation Administration officials provided enough information Friday for LaBelle to piece together a preliminary sketch of what happened:

At 2:43 a.m., controllers in the Anchorage tower cleared China Airlines flight O11 to taxi toward the airport's north-south runway, Runway 32. The big plane was preparing for China Airlines' daily 11-hour nonstop run from Anchorage to Taipei.

The three-man flight crew turned west onto a taxiway that connects to the runway. Then air traffic controllers cleared the plane for departure on Runway 32.

But instead of turning north onto the runway, the pilots accelerated west down the taxiway toward Cook Inlet.

They had a strip of pavement only about 6,000 feet long in which to gain the speed and lift necessary for takeoff, airport officials said. The taxiway also narrows significantly before it ends, LaBelle said.

The runway gives pilots nearly 11,000 feet of asphalt, officials said.

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.

LaBelle said the NTSB investigation will look at the experience and training of the three-man flight crew, condition of airport equipment, the crew's duty time or problems communicating because of a language barrier.

"It would not be unusual if there was a language issue," he said.

English is the international language of aviation. Under an agreement with the International Civil Aviation Organization, pilots must demonstrate enough English to communicate with controllers, according to Joette Storm, the FAA's spokeswoman in Anchorage.

Taiwan government officials are responsible for making sure the China Airlines pilots can communicate, Storm said. Any airline approved to fly in the United States must also meet FAA requirements.

Airport officials -- notified of the incident just after it occurred -- said they didn't know of any mechanical problems with the taxiway or runway.

"All lights were working, everything was functioning," said airport manager Corky Caldwell. "Weather conditions were good. It was clear and the runways were clear of ice and snow."

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.