A Nok Air Boeing 737-800 skidded off the runway as it was “readying for” take-off yesterday from Trang for Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport. There was poor visibility and heavy rain at the time. The incoming flight had circled the airport several times before making a safe landing at 4:55pm.

 

(How do you skid off a runway as you "ready for" take off, I wonder? As you are taking off, I understand - but "readying for"??)

Pprune-org speculates that taking off in such weather was touch-and-go. It also suggests that the presence on board of Pol Gen Chatchawal Suksomjit, a deputy national police chief might have influenced the flight crew to take-off as the VIP would not have “wanted delays”! Oh, what a wicked suggestion!   

 

One writer adds, "Unlike bus, truck and car crashes in Thailand the driver did not run away."   

 

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/363334/nok-air-flight-dd7411-slides-off-trang-runway
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/520813-nok-air-grass-after-aborted-t-o-trang.html


Photo: Bangkok Post

I don't get this.

 

Surely LANDING in wet weather is the difficult part?  Poor visibility, maybe side winds, difficult to judge altitude and less grip from the tyres.

Wouldn't take off be pretty much the same as normal?   Build up speed on the runway & lift off at full power?

It seems not to be an unusual type of 'occurrence' since there have been at least four other 737 runway skids in Asia in just the last few days - Air China, Korean Air, Orient Thai (at Surat Thani) and Lion Air in Indonesia. The Lion Air aircraft overshot the runway with one fatality - a cow!

 

My guess - and it is just that - is that the captain might have put his engines into near full thrust as he was turning off the taxiway on to the runway rather than waiting till he was lined up for take-off. This does quite frequently happen at smaller airports. The sudden power surge and a very wet taxiway could have resulted in the skid.

 

There has been discussion on some local sites to the effect that the plane skidded as it aborted a take-off, but I can find no reliable source to confirm that.