"Dave Doe" wrote in message
. nz...
Have you (now lets get the context right) ever taken off on the wrong
runway?

How is that relevant?

[...]
No - you've provided a different question - thereby completely changing
the original point - that taking off on the wrong runway is not a simple
mistake, it's a very very serious one. It's on par with without the
gear down.

I don't know what you mean by that. My point is simply that I don't see the
point in getting angry at someone for making a mistake. I realize this is
Usenet, and I realize it's quite common for people who use Usenet to get
angry at the drop of a hat. I'm simply offering my opinion that anger seems
more reasonably reserved for people who *intentionally* do something wrong.

Too many people in the world do things wrong unintentionally, on too regular
a basis. Using that as one's standard for anger would result in one being
angry most of the time. Granted, many people go through life like that.
But it doesn't have to be that way, and this is a classic example of a
situation where anger is out of place.

[...]
With all due respect, the mistake made is *very* serious...

I never said that the mistake wasn't serious. I never said it wasn't pilot
error. I don't know where you get that, but you need to go back and reread
my post if that's what you think you read.

What I said is that there's no evidence that the pilots were BLATANTLY
IRRESPONSIBLE. As far as we know, they weren't drunk. As far as we know,
they didn't toss the checklist out of the window. As far as we know, they
didn't have a flight attendant sitting in their lap. For all we know, they
DID cross-check the runway number with their magnetic heading, and simply
failed to see the discrepancy. Fatigue is a powerful skills reducer and it
can make you see things or not see things that aren't or are there.

* throwing a divider at school when you were 15 and getting someone in
the leg is a stupid thing to do.
* driving drunk at high speed and killing someone (by accident) - well.

Again, I have no idea what these two things are supposed to mean. Drunk
driving is a conscious decision to do something blatantly irresponsible.
There's absolutely no evidence that these pilots did anything of the sort.

[...]
By the way, while the weather was VFR, it was an hour before sunrise.
That
is, basically still pitch dark. The poorer quality of runway may not
have
been apparent lit only by the airplane's lights, and there may have been
some fluke with the signage that led the pilots to think they were at the
correct runway. Your assertion that fatigue or the early hour could not
have been an issue is simply absurd. There are at least a dozen other
factors that have already been reported that could have been
contributory,
and there are dozens, if not hundreds more that no one has even thought
of
or identified yet.

You're making your own unvalidated assertions now.

Such as? Name one unvalidated assertion I made.

[...]
I'll agree with you on that point.. however, it's not looking good for
the pilots. Is it?

Define "looking good". I think it goes without saying that pilots who take
off from the wrong runway made a mistake. It's certainly pilot error.
There's no question about that. But was their error a blatantly
irresponsible act? There's absolutely no evidence that it was.

Pete