Description

On 25 February 2010, an Airbus A320-200 being operated by Aeroflot on a scheduled passenger flight from Oslo to Moscow Sheremetyevo successfully took off in normal daylight visibility from an unobstructed taxiway parallel to the designated departure runway 01L. The flight was a line training sector for the First Officer and a Safety Pilot was occupying the flight deck observer seat. The flight crew reported that they had not appreciated that they had taken off from the taxiway until informed of this by ATC after take-off.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by AIBN. The diagram below shows the position from which the incident aircraft taxied ( a solid red triangle) via taxiways ‘G’ and ‘N’ for departure from Runway 01L at A3 and the orange line indicates where the aircraft took off northbound on taxiway M after receiving take off clearance for Runway 01L whilst taxiing.