Glasair vs. pickup truck

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.

Short Version: A vehicle was on or entered runway while I was performing a departure.

Long Version: It was a quiet day at this uncontrolled GA field. No traffic in the pattern and my airplane, a Glasair, was the only one moving on the ramp.

After warming up the engine I proceeded to taxi for departure. After doing run-up checks, I checked for incoming traffic on base or final, made my radio call and rolled out onto the runway.

I checked ahead while advancing the throttle and commencing the takeoff roll. I was shifting my view back and forth from out in front to the engine instruments and airspeed.

As I was accelerating to rotate speed, my pitch attitude changed a little bit due to running over a small hump in the runway. At that time I was able to see a white pickup on the runway in front of me. Insufficient room to stop, but I was able to rotate and lift off.

I do not know how much clearance there was between my airplane and the truck.

After returning to the airport I found out that an airport employee had given permission for an individual to drive out onto the active runway to look for a hubcap!

Supposedly this individual had a handheld radio but admitted to not making a radio call before driving onto the active runway. Individual claims that he did not hear my radio call.

In my aircraft, my eye level is about five feet off the ground when seated. During acceleration the nose of the aircraft comes up enough to partially obstruct my forward vision.

This was several days after a snowstorm, so there were large white areas on either side of the runway and in the background. The runway had recently been repainted and various runway markings were bright white. Very hard to pick out a completely unexpected white pickup.

Maybe I should have seen the pickup sooner, but consider myself lucky to have seen the unexpected obstruction in time to avoid it.

The airport operator should never allow anyone to drive on the runway that is not a county employee with the appropriate ground ops training. Any time a county vehicle is on the runway there should be plenty of warning by radio.

If there is even a possibility of a conflict with an aircraft the vehicle should not enter the runway safety area. The county employee should have known better.

Primary Problem: Human Factors

ACN: 2183494

When you click on the link it will take you to the ASRS Online Database. Click on Report Number and put the ACN in the search box, then click Search. On that page, click on “view only the 1 most recent report.”