Intersection Takeoff NOT Okay

AviationObserver

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AviationObserver
Intersection takeoffs should be no biggie, but one has to consider all the details. At the former SAC base, 5500’ available, bugsmasher, don’t normally see an issue.

Say it’s cold out, you have to warm the oil anyway, maybe just taxi towards the end. Now if one is at the wrong intersection, think you have 5500’, but only have 2000’, or whatever, could be an issue.

There are few absolutes in aviation, even an adage of ‘never to much fuel or altitude’. One could load to heavy for that takeoff, even in a bugsmasher, where fuel should of be less, full fuel later.

To much altitude, we may get dizzy.
 
I had this conversation at IAD:

TWR: Can you take the intersection at Y3, 4500 feet remaining.
27K: Affirmative
TWR: Actually, there's only 4000 feet remaining, can you take that?
27K: I only need 850 feet.
 
I had this conversation at IAD:

TWR: Can you take the intersection at Y3, 4500 feet remaining.
27K: Affirmative
TWR: Actually, there's only 4000 feet remaining, can you take that?
27K: I only need 850 feet.
Same here in the RV-8. It helps when there are four or five fright school planes in line, all of them reading the POH cover-to-cover and then when finally cleared for takeoff, lining up and doing another 45 seconds worth of grabass on the runway before remembering that they are there to fly.
 
There are few absolutes in aviation, even an adage of ‘never to much fuel or altitude’. One could load to heavy for that takeoff, even in a bugsmasher, where fuel should of be less, full fuel later.

And there's the old saying about the three most useless things to a pilot in case of emergency:

The fuel you left on the ground.
>>> The runway behind you. <<<
The air above you.
 
And there's the old saying about the three most useless things to a pilot in case of emergency:

The fuel you left on the ground.
>>> The runway behind you. <<<
The air above you.
Don’t forget the old adage that the three most useless things in the world are:
Tits on a man
balls on a priest, and
Old adages.
 
Intersection takeoffs should be no biggie, but one has to consider all the details. At the former SAC base, 5500’ available, bugsmasher, don’t normally see an issue.
Military Tower would not let us do intersection takeoff. We had to taxi full length. With the Aero Club on the south end of the field, the 2 mile taxi to the north end for departure on a hot muggy day was tough. Even tougher in the Mooney, the engine would overheat during taxi with the slight breeze coming up the tail. More than once we would have to stop taxi, clear the parallel and turn into the slight breeze to cool the engine before we continued taxi. We always requested "long landing" for the short taxi back to the club.
 
Hard to understand what the thought process was that led them to believe wasting almost 2/3 the runway was okay. We take intersection takeoffs pretty seriously at the airline and will always obtain takeoff performance data for the specific intersection. I wonder if they thought they were at a different intersection than they actually were.
 
Military Tower would not let us do intersection takeoff. We had to taxi full length. With the Aero Club on the south end of the field, the 2 mile taxi to the north end for departure on a hot muggy day was tough. Even tougher in the Mooney, the engine would overheat during taxi with the slight breeze coming up the tail. More than once we would have to stop taxi, clear the parallel and turn into the slight breeze to cool the engine before we continued taxi. We always requested "long landing" for the short taxi back to the club.
Come to my air patch. At 13,645’ long, we’ll let you do intersection take offs all day long. Just don’t do them all day long - I’ll need a bathroom break at some point, and watch my movies and YouTube and…
 
Come to my air patch. At 13,645’ long, we’ll let you do intersection take offs all day long. Just don’t do them all day long - I’ll need a bathroom break at some point, and watch my movies and YouTube and…
Heck, that sounds like a great opportunity for multiple touch and goes in one pass...
 
I know that you aren't supposed to abort above V1 or something like that, but does that include when you're offroading half a mile past the end of the runway and still aren't airborne after colliding with some part of the airport infrastructure?
 
Military Tower would not let us do intersection takeoff. We had to taxi full length. With the Aero Club on the south end of the field, the 2 mile taxi to the north end for departure on a hot muggy day was tough. Even tougher in the Mooney, the engine would overheat during taxi with the slight breeze coming up the tail. More than once we would have to stop taxi, clear the parallel and turn into the slight breeze to cool the engine before we continued taxi. We always requested "long landing" for the short taxi back to the club.
Was that at KCEF? I departed out of there one night (long night XC during [simulated] instrument training). Controller asked if I wanted to take an intersection departure for 23 at N with something like 3800' available. With my 172, I was all too glad to not have to taxi from the FBO the whole 2 miles to the other end of the field!
 
I know that you aren't supposed to abort above V1 or something like that, but does that include when you're offroading half a mile past the end of the runway and still aren't airborne after colliding with some part of the airport infrastructure?
Above V1 is go unless you’re convinced the bird won’t fly. An off-airport, high-speed abort involves plenty of risk. I don’t see any recent satellite imagery of the airport but older images show plenty of flat, clear terrain past the departure end of 30L with the exception of a 4-lane highway (266) at about the 1/4-mile point. Rumor that the rotation involved a tail strike so I suspect our intrepid capitano Italiano had purged the abort option from his brain. Flight crew sounded rattled on RT shortly after departure.
 
Above V1 is go unless you’re convinced the bird won’t fly. An off-airport, high-speed abort involves plenty of risk. I don’t see any recent satellite imagery of the airport but older images show plenty of flat, clear terrain past the departure end of 30L with the exception of a 4-lane highway (266) at about the 1/4-mile point. Rumor that the rotation involved a tail strike so I suspect our intrepid capitano Italiano had purged the abort option from his brain. Flight crew sounded rattled on RT shortly after departure.
There have been several historical accidents that involve aircraft merging with parts of the approach light system and/or localizer antenna (as was the case with this one). Who knows what kind of damage you’re taking on as you plow through those.

Infamously, a 747 did this at SFO back in the early 70s. Was supposed to takeoff on 28R, but got changed to a much shorter 1R, rotated late, took out the approach lights for 19L, which pierced the fuselage, injuring passengers, but also took out some of the hydraulics and its inboard main gear. It dumped fuel, came back around, landed, skidded off the runway, and had a heck of an time evac’ing because unbeknownst to anybody involved with the 747 to that point, without the onboard mains, the stopped airplane will tip back onto its tail at most typical CGs, rendering the forward slides dangerously unusable.
 
This accident is more about being lost on the airport, wrong intersection, than improperly accepting an intersection takeoff.
Had they taken the correct intersection, all would be well.
 
Hard to understand what the thought process was that led them to believe wasting almost 2/3 the runway was okay. We take intersection takeoffs pretty seriously at the airline and will always obtain takeoff performance data for the specific intersection. I wonder if they thought they were at a different intersection than they actually were.
My guess was either wrong intersection, or wrong direction on the runway. Either took off wrong way, or read the distance remaining for the other direction.
 
Was that at KCEF? I departed out of there one night (long night XC during [simulated] instrument training). Controller asked if I wanted to take an intersection departure for 23 at N with something like 3800' available. With my 172, I was all too glad to not have to taxi from the FBO the whole 2 miles to the other end of the field!
No, KBAD, Barksdale AFB, LA, That is Louisiana, or "Lower Alabama", not LA Calif
 
Not the first airliner to make this mistake, and probably won't be the last.

This one was pretty bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK_Airlines_Flight_1602
I was also thinking of that accident but other than 747 and Canada, couldn’t remember the specifics. Highlights the necessity of applying the reasonableness check to any data spit out by a performance calculator; i.e., why would you have the same thrust setting and V-speeds for a 780,000 lb. takeoff as for the previous 530,000 lb. takeoff. Also thought of the 2014 US Air (1702) A320 accident in PHL.

Unknown yet whether the E195 had adequate performance margin but was improperly configured or did not have the required performance margin for D5 TORA regardless of aircraft configuration.
 
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