2008 Dalian Airport runway incursion

The 2008 Dalian Airport runway incursion occurred on the evening of 30 April 2008, when, owing to a crew error, a Xiamen Airlines aircraft taxiing on the ground strayed onto the runway being used by a China Southern Airlines flight that was taking off, creating a dangerous situation in which the two aircraft nearly collided. Fortunately, the Xiamen Airlines crew informed the tower and the China Southern crew at the last moment, and the latter rejected the takeoff and brought the aircraft to an emergency stop, averting a collision disaster.

Course of events

On the evening of 30 April 2008, China Southern Airlines flight CZ6621, an A319, was preparing to take off from Dalian Airport for Shenyang, while Xiamen Airlines flight MF8052, a 737-700, was also preparing to take off for Hangzhou. The tower instructed the China Southern aircraft to taxi out via taxiway A and take off from runway 10, and instructed the Xiamen Airlines aircraft to follow the China Southern aircraft and enter the runway after the latter had taken off. However, the Xiamen Airlines aircraft did not visually see the preceding aircraft take off, and without taxiing to the takeoff line it entered the runway from connecting taxiway E, straying onto the middle section of runway 10. After Xiamen Airlines MF8052 discovered the error, it switched off its takeoff lights, landing lights and strobe lights, and without reporting to the tower the crew made continuous left turns on the runway trying to exit it, which shortened the straight-line distance between the two aircraft and caused the right wingtip of the Xiamen Airlines MF8052 aircraft to cross the runway centreline, increasing the risk of collision. As a result, neither the tower controller nor CZ6621, which was on its high-speed takeoff roll, could visually detect that MF8052, with its lights off, had intruded onto the middle section of the runway. At 20:53:17 the tower issued takeoff clearance to the China Southern aircraft. At 53:22 China Southern began its takeoff acceleration. At 53:47 the captain of MF8052, which was quietly backing out towards taxiway E and had already heard the tower issue takeoff clearance to CZ6621, saw the navigation lights on the outside of CZ6621's fuselage and heard CZ6621's roar, and realised that he could no longer finish exiting the main runway in time; MF8052 shouted frantically over the radio "Tell him to reject the takeoff, tell him to reject the takeoff, reject takeoff…", asking the tower to order the China Southern aircraft to reject its takeoff. The tower immediately issued the instruction to the China Southern aircraft. By this time the China Southern aircraft's speed had reached 86.8 knots.

On hearing Xiamen Airlines' call, the China Southern aircraft immediately began emergency braking and swerved to one side to avoid it, without waiting for the tower to issue the instruction. At 53:56 the aircraft came to a complete stop; at this point the nose wheels of the two aircraft were only 35 metres apart.

Subsequently, the captain of Xiamen Airlines flight MF8052, disregarding the possibility that the two aircraft might scrape each other, hurriedly taxied the aircraft away from the scene. After leaving the runway, he was also in a hurry to take off and leave the airport where the incident had occurred; when he taxied to the intersection of taxiway "E" and taxiway "A", he insisted that he "could not turn" and refused to carry out the tower controller's instruction to "turn left and taxi back to the apron", cancelling the flight and submitting to an investigation, and on the grounds that there were many passengers on board, he turned right and taxied along taxiway "A" to runway 10 and took off.

During the flight back to Hangzhou of Xiamen Airlines flight MF8052, the captain worked on the other crew members.

After the Xiamen Airlines MF8052 aircraft landed in Hangzhou, the voice recording on the cockpit voice recorder was erased.