Pilots 'unaware of short runway'

Pilots of a UK-bound holiday jet taking off from Prague on a flight to Stansted airport in Essex started their take-off forgetting that a set of works had considerably reduced the length of runway available, an accident report has said.

They realized their mistake only when the easyJet Airbus A319, with 149 passengers aboard, approached the works at the temporary runway end.

The aircraft became airborne at the planned speeds, a report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said. But in what the AAIB described as a "serious incident", the plane "approached closer to the works than would have been intended".

The report said that in their pre-flight package the crew noted a notice to airmen for Prague airport that the works had reduced the runway length from 3,715 metres to 2,500 metres.

Before take-off, the pilots had listened to an automatic terminal information service broadcast, "but it was reportedly in heavily-accented English", the AAIB report said.

The report went on: "They did not glean from it that the runway length was reduced and had forgotten the content of the associated Notam (notice to airmen) seen at the pre-flight stage.

"Thus the airport details copied by the co-pilot to the paper flight plan did not contain any reference to the reduced length, and their subsequent take-off performance calculations were based upon take-off using the normal runway length. The commander (captain) later attributed the oversight to reduced crew awareness at the end of a lengthy duty period."

The captain also considered that the presence of manuals showing both the normal and reduced lengths of the runway had contributed to the incident.

The report went on: "He (the captain) also noted that the crew's pre-flight activities had been interrupted by a visit to the flight deck by an acquaintance and thought that this distraction may also have been a factor."

The AAIB added that the works on the runway were not easily visible to the crew at the start of the take-off and as the aircraft had landed on another runway when reaching Prague the crew had not seen the works at that stage. The report said that the captain had noted later that "there were no warnings from from ATC (air traffic control) or ground signage indicating that the runway length was reduced."