This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
A pick-up truck entered the runway environment at the Taxiway 1 intersection from the north while my student and I were on the takeoff roll from the north end of Runway XX.
We had made all the proper radio calls and were accelerating towards rotation speed.
I noticed the vehicle approaching the intersection from the north (our left). When it showed no signs of slowing as it approached the runway hold short lines, I called for the abort takeoff (reject) and pulled throttle to idle and applied maximum brakes.
While we were able to avoid collision and maintain control of the aircraft on the runway, we were forced to skid and veer to the our right (while staying on the concrete).
The vehicle skidded and veered to its left and stopped short of the runway.
We then taxied down the runway and exited at the next intersection.
My student was clearly shaken from this incident, but I turned it into a lesson on abort procedures and instances that you may encounter beyond your own aircraft.
The vehicle was not on CTAF nor monitoring calls. I’m told this is not the first time that something like this has happened with this vehicle.
Primary Problem: Human Factors
ACN: 2143425
The apparent ‘invisibility’ of aircraft in these instances highlights the need for pilots to use all available lights during takeoff, landing, and runway crossings.
On a bright sunny day in NW Kansas, I was preparing to cross our little grass strip and the local Methodist preacher was firewalling his old tail dragger to explore the heavens with his brother.
I stopped short of the runway to look for traffic and seeing none proceeded to cross.
As the wobbling craft passed overhead, and circled back to land on the now empty runway, I thanked Jesus that the three of us were alive. Praise the Lord!
ALIENS do exist. Their illegal and driving trucks.
I was landing on the short crosswind runway at KFNL years ago—it’s 2189’ long—when a fire truck crossed in front of me as I was rolling out after touching down. I had made all appropriate position calls, but apparently the driver wasn’t paying attention. Fortunately he cleared the runway just before I got there, because it was too late to go around and yet I was still rolling too fast to stop.
You can bet the airport fire chief got an earful later! And he promised that that driver would get some much needed training!
Always be prepared!
The problem isn’t that particular vehicle. It’s with that particular nutcase driving it!