Quoting FlyingColours (Reply 18): It's actually the exerts from an incident report I filed post landing, those people who know me from A.NET Airlines & Fusion know I take simming ultra serious and try to make it as real as possible, just like the silly levels of details in my trip reports. |
It seems like you had a lucky escape from a near disaster – very well handled, issue on approach is your going so slow and while you may have wonderfully powerful engines on the Boeing 767-200ER they take time to spoil up

something that I learnt in the worst incident I have ever experienced on
FS.
I am very much the same with when on FSX, I make it as real as I can, I always think to myself it is a simulation and name a game... I always check the weather (I use ASX) and the planning of my flight (so pre flight brief I guess) can take anything up to an hour. I always use real world NATracks for the date I am flying. I keep it as real as I can – what’s the point otherwise? I also do a lot of flying on Vatsim – however since the release of Ultimate Traffic 2 I spend time most of my time flying with the ‘real’ world traffic.
Many moons ago (back in 2003) I had the worst incident I have ever experienced since I starting using
FS in 1998. I was using ‘real world weather’ (with updates) and
AI traffic – everything was set to ‘real’ or ‘realistic’ (as it always is on my
FS programme).
I was operating a Trans World Airlines ad hoc flight (service number TW702 – the old flight number which was used by TWA on their
LHR to
JFK sector). My flight was departing from
LGW to
JFK in early March the equipment was a Boeing 767-205ER (reg N650TW - msn 23057 81) which started its real world life with Braathens being delivered on 23/03/1984 (reg
LN-
SUV). She had a mixed history after serving TACA, Varig and before joining TWA she flew for a short period with Britannia Airways and in the real world continues to fly for Air Seychelles). As you will read the aircrafts Flight Sim life ended in 2003 – thanks to a major incident on takeoff.
The weather on this Monday morning was like pea soup –in other words major fog. The published take off time was 08:15Z however due to adverse weather conditions (the fog) I simulated the inbound service running an hour late (lucky for me long haul flights tend to have a longer turn around time, so P&S (push and start) was conducted on time at 08:00Z
The fog had improved from around 40ft at its worst (hence the incoming flights landing being delayed), as I started my taxi the fog had lifted from 400ft to 600ft – I started my taxi to runway 08Right which took longer than normal due to reduced visibility (keeping things real I simulated ATC having reduced the maximum taxi speed).
I arrived at the end of the queue for runway 08Right at 08:25Z (my taxi was very slow and I had to wait for an aircraft to pass in front of me), with 2 aircraft ahead of me – this gave me time cross check my route, emergency take off procedures and reconfirming my
NAT (North Atlantic Track) with OPS.
At 08:35Z I was next for takeoff, cabin was secure and the cabin crew were seated – I was ready to go bar the fact was told to hold for an MD83 on short final. As the aircraft passed and the fog was so thick all I could see was a faint flash of the beacon.
Seconds after I was cleared to taxi into position and hold, final checks were completed. Around a minute later ATC confirmed that visibility had reduced down to around 300ft – as I was lined up on the runway I was happy to go, knowing that other then the fog there was no other weather conditions of note, I did however decide to continue to use reduced thrust on takeoff, but decreased the ‘temp’ a little (so I will get more thrust on takeoff) using less of the runway as the whole time since I was cleared to enter the runway I was aware of another aircraft on approach behind me – a Boeing 737-400 from Frankfurt.
You will often find at busy times at
LGW in real life an aircraft will touch down as this happens an aircraft waiting to take off will swiftly taxi onto the runway and hold for permission for takeoff with another aircraft on finals and cleared for landing... The second the landing aircraft is clear of the runway the aircraft holding for takeoff is cleared and accelerates off – I’ve been in a real world flight deck a number of times seeing the aircraft taking off ahead of us when we are on short finals – something that seems very close indeed!
Back to flight sim.
I was cleared for takeoff and only being able to see around 250ft to 300ft in front of me all looked clear. Take off thrust was set and I started pounding down the runway, the Boeing 762 passed 80kts quickly and shortly after (for a long haul – heavy aircraft) I passed V1 – about two seconds after this I saw the T tail of the MD83 (which had ‘cleared the runway) just off to the left of the centre of the runway, she was moving off the turning – very slowly though.
I applied maximum thrust and rotated hard back and swung the rudder hard so the nose of the aircraft went to the right – the whole time I knew all was fruitless and I would hit my aircrafts wing and maybe engine into the rear of the MD83.
My aircrafts wing hit the MD83 just missing the engine by a few meters but it was enough to paralyse my aircraft, I climbed to around 30ft before the left wing dropped and the aircraft crashed into the runway left wing first at around 140kts. The Boeing 737-400 which was at around 700ft was told to go around perform a none procedural turn to heading 180 immediately and climb to 3000ft (and await diversion instructions).
If this had been real world I don’t think anyone would have made it from my aircraft (so all 226 PAX, 10 cabin crew and 2 pilots died on my
FS flight), the MD83 however may have been a different story.
PAX sitting at the very front of the aircraft (along with the FDC) would have been untouched by the wing – however I am guessing my wing would have sliced through the ‘T’ tail, if not the engines as well... So this aircraft lost say 98 pax out of 152 3 cabin crew out of 5 were also lost). The PAX and crew that did make it all needed hospital treatment, the majority needing to be hospitalised – many suffering from major burns or missing limbs).
The issue after looking into the incident (something I do, if anything goes wrong with one of my flights) was that I was cleared to take off from ATC and the pilot on the MD83 while thinking he had cleared the runway had not (and
FS had thought the aircraft had also cleared the runway – something that has improved greatly over the years is the ATC simulation that comes with
FS, the best being FSX).
I think if there had been an official investigation the blame would have been with ATC clearing me to take off, with the other aircraft still on the runway and also blame on the MD83 crew for switching to the ground frequency when still on the runway (even if taxing off it very slowly).
I have now updated my own policy. If there is heavy fog and the runway is being used for take off’s as well as landings I will wait 3 / 4 minutes from the point of being cleared for takeoff (if I can’t see the runway is clear – if I can, then I go when cleared).
Since this accident I have only had the other one, at the start of this ‘topic’ which is when I over ran the runway at KSAN...
Kimberly