Description

On 29 July 2008, as a Boeing 737-700 being operated by WestJet on a scheduled passenger flight from Toronto to Vancouver as WestJet 699 was taking off in normal ground visibility and daylight, three vehicles entered the far end of the runway driving in the opposite direction. ATC received an Incursion Alert and instructed the aircraft to reject the take off but this was ignored by the crew because the aircraft was near to rotation and it got airborne before reaching the vehicles.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the Canadian TSB. It was established that when the three vehicles, which were Rescue and Fire Fighting Services appliances en route to the fire training area, entered the upwind end of runway 33L on which the 737 was taking off, (see the diagram below), the aircraft was approximately one third of the way along the 9,088ft. (2,770m.) long runway. It was found that just over half a minute before the North TWR controller had cleared the 737 to take off on runway 33L, the GND north controller had, believing that runway 15R/33L was under his control, cleared the three emergency services vehicles to enter Runway 15R.