It is more common for KLM pilots to make mistakes when taking off due to time pressure and haste. This is stated by the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) in a report on a KLM flight in 2018, in which a Boeing 737 only just left the runway at Schiphol in the nick of time. Even then, time pressure and haste played a role, although the flight’s captain seems to deny that reading.
The OVV looked at a KLM flight from Schiphol to Munich on 10 June 2018. The pilots of a Boeing 737-800, with 189 passengers on board, then took off from the Buitenveldertbaan, but did so with partially incorrect calculations. As a result, the aircraft only lifted off the ground at the end of the runway. Such an error can have fatal consequences.
The pilots had received permission from air traffic control not to taxi onto the Buitenveldertbaan via the original ramp at the start of the runway, but via another ramp. The crew should have made a new calculation for the changed situation, with the corresponding take-off power.
10 meters height
Because the pilots had also failed to check the – as it turned out – wrong calculations, the plane took off too late. It hung only 10 meters above the runway threshold. If the Boeing had had to make an emergency stop before takeoff, it would not have come to a stop until 247 meters after the runway, probably with disastrous consequences.
According to the OVV, similar mistakes are made more often at KLM, citing examples from 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2021. Time pressure and haste play a role in all cases. One of the recommendations of the OVV is that pilots should stop the aircraft if the take-off procedure is adjusted and carefully check the adjusted calculations.
Captain: time pressure did not play an important role
The commander of the flight to Munich denies that time pressure played a significant role in the incident and wanted that suggestion removed from the final report. The proposed adjustment was refused by the OVV, which states that time pressure and haste did indeed lead to the incident.
black boxes
The pilots had not initially reported the incident to KLM. In addition, the recordings of the black boxes, where conversations and data are taped from the cockpit, should have been secured. That also did not happen because the crew did not sound the alarm after the flight.