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US investigating China Airlines take-off incident
AP, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
Sunday, Jan 27, 2002, Page 2
The US National Transportation Safety Board was investigating an incident early Friday in which a China Airlines plane took off in the wrong direction and on a taxiway instead of a runway.
Jim LaBelle, who heads the NTSB's Alaska office, said the China Airlines Airbus A-343 had about 250 people on board when the incident occurred shortly before 3am local time at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
The plane was directed to take off on the northbound runway. Instead it took off on a westbound taxiway.
Runways and taxiways have different lighting colors to help pilots distinguish between the two. A taxiway has blue lights while a runway has white lights.
The plane departed safely, but LaBelle said the landing gear grazed a snow berm at the end of the taxiway.
"It could not have been any closer," LaBelle said. The incident underscores the need for a large-scale water-rescue plan for Cook Inlet, he said.
Investigators will listen to tapes of the radio transmissions between cockpit and the control tower to determine what went wrong, LaBelle said.
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