Pilot’s error ‘negligent’

I read your web news story about the pilot of a commercial flight who tried to take off from a taxiway at Nice airport.

Sadly, it is not “an extremely rare” event. Along with quite a list of misdemeanours, it is all too common. Access to a runway from the taxiway is recognisable by first a metre square black-on-yellow board to the right of the taxiway at what is known as the ‘Holding Point’.

On entering and lining up, the first thing the pilot sees is a series of white bars across the runway threshold and the two- digit runway heading painted in white on the runway.

The fact these clues were not noticed is a clear indication of negligence. It is a failure that is worryingly frequent.

Richard Chandless, Saône-et-Loire