As the Falcon 2000 accelerated quickly through 80 knots on a clear sunny San Francisco day, first officer Joe Wolfer called out our speed, and then it wasn’t long before he said, “V1.” I moved my right hand from the power levers, then heard “rotate,” and pulled on the yoke. That was when, suddenly, the emergency happened. 

I slammed the power levers to idle and stood on the brakes while saying, “Stop, stop, stop” to signal Wolfer that he could help as much as possible to get the big Falcon slowed down. As it turned out, we sailed off the end of the runway into San Francisco Bay carrying 60 knots of airspeed, hopefully a survivable scenario and certainly a lot better than doing so at 150 knots. 

By now you’ve probably figured out that Wolfer and I weren’t flying a real airplane and that we didn’t get wet that day. What we were doing was one of 16 ultra-realistic scenarios in FlightSafety International’s Go/No-Go Rejected Takeoff course, part of the training provider’s Advanced Airmanship series.

I was invited to do the training at FlightSafety’s Teterboro (New Jersey) Learning Center. The course takes about six hours and necessarily is done two students at a time. In my case, FlightSafety Instructor Joe Wolfer hadn’t yet done the Rejected Takeoff course, so we worked together under the tutelage of Michael Romeo, Dallas-based director of advanced training programs. Joe and I would each get to fly the 16 scenarios from the left and right seats to give us the maximum benefit of the training.

The curriculum began with a detailed discussion of the day’s plan, but more important, a breakdown of the concept of rejected takeoffs and how pilots are trained to handle problems at critical times before and after reaching V1 (takeoff decision speed). 

The need for this training was made abundantly clear after the NTSB published the final report about a runway overrun of an MD-83 on March 8, 2017, in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The pilots had no way of knowing that the airplane’s elevators were damaged by strong winds while it was sitting on the ground days before the flight. Control checks were normal, but after reaching V1, then rotation speed, the pilot flying (PF) was unable to get the nose to rise and he called for an abort. The pilot not flying (PNF), also a check airman, immediately and effectively assisted in the abort instead of questioning the PF’s judgment. Despite leaving the end of the runway at about 115 mph, none of the 110 passengers or six crew members were injured. 

The NTSB credited the PF’s decision to abort and the pilots’ well-coordinated efforts with saving the lives of everyone on board. 

“This is the kind of extreme scenario that most pilots never encounter: discovering that their plane won’t fly only after they know they won’t be able to stop it on the available runway,” said NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt. “These two pilots did everything right after things started to go very wrong.”

Instituting a Standard Process

Development of the FlightSafety Go/No-Go Rejected Takeoff course began about six years ago, after an incident brought to light the need for specific training. In this case, the owner of a business jet was understandably upset when the pilots aborted a takeoff because of a cabin-door crew alerting system (CAS) message. Loose laptops and cellphones were sent crashing to the front of the cabin. When the owner asked the pilots why they had aborted the takeoff for such a minor issue, they told him that this is how they had been taught during FlightSafety training. 

Further investigation found that some FlightSafety instructors were teaching pilots to always abort for any red CAS message, while others taught to abort only for more serious issues. “There was no standard,” Romeo explained. “It was up to the individual pilot or instructor.” In fact, the advice to abort for a red CAS message wasn’t even in most flight manuals. This prompted a re-examination of takeoff procedures and ultimately development of the Go/No-Go Rejected Takeoff course. The goal was to replace “this is the way we’ve always done it” with a logical process that gives pilots tools to help make the proper decision during the critical and short time during takeoff when making the wrong the decision can be fatal. 

“The whole purpose of this course is to prevent overrun accidents by helping you make a better go/no-go decision,” he said. “The go/no-go phase of flight is the most dangerous thing that we do in the airplane. Bar none. Unlike other decisions we make in the airplane, if we decide to abort or continue to take off, we pretty much can't take it back.”

It’s important to understand that most business jet pilots get little comprehensive training on rejected takeoffs. Typically, during a recurrent training session, there are one or two V1 engine cuts during takeoff, just to meet regulatory requirements. “We don't have enough time to go into all the details and how we come up with the decision,” Romeo said. 

What FlightSafety teaches in this course is a much better way to conduct the pre-takeoff safety briefing, followed by putting this into practice in the simulator, not only to prove that it works better but also to help pilots build the muscle memory of handling takeoff emergencies in a fashion that delivers a much better chance of surviving. Finally, we would practice takeoffs where we get into the air and need to make an emergency return to the runway, something that would prove to be a lot of fun from a handling standpoint. 

Each of us would get two hours in each pilot seat, and Romeo pointed out that the PNF’s job would be much more than just takeoff callouts, lifting gear and flap handles, and making radio calls. A crew that trains together in the Go/No-Go Rejected Takeoff course soon learns that both pilots play an important role in the decision-making and, in fact, either pilot can make the call that either aborts or continues the takeoff. 

Two Takeoff Scenarios

The key to the decision is to look at the situation in a different way than jet pilots are typically taught. The FlightSafety method is to split takeoffs into two types: where runway length is critical (very close to the balanced field length) and where the length is not critical (plenty of runway remaining versus runway required). 

The difference between the two is that when length is critical, pilots must adopt a “go-minded” attitude. There is not much time to make a decision when runway length is critical, and stopping should be attempted only for a specific safety condition. With more runway available, the stop decision (“stop-minded”) can include additional safety considerations. 

In either case, however, for an emergency occurring after V1, the plan is always to “go” — take off, and then turn back to the airport. 

FlightSafety’s explanation of “go-minded for takeoff” and “stop-minded for takeoff” gives specific instruction on what this means in terms of aborting a takeoff. At the same time, the training gives pilots a much simpler but more effective pre-takeoff safety briefing that covers these critical issues and eliminates the confusing and often lengthy verbiage that pilots sometimes use.

It should be noted that FlightSafety teaches the use of the words “stop” and “go” instead of “abort” and “continue.” The idea is to eliminate unnecessary syllables, which take longer to spit out in an emergency. It’s far easier and faster to say, with urgency, “GO!” instead of “CON-TI-NUE!” Likewise, “STOP!” comes out much faster than “A-BORT!” 

The big difference between a go-minded and stop-minded takeoff is how to treat issues that occur between 80 kias and V1. The runway available is the key factor. 

For both types of takeoffs, the briefing starts like this: “Between 80 kias and V1, we will abort on my callout of “STOP” for an engine failure, loss of directional control, external danger…”

Then the briefing continues, for a go-minded takeoff, as follows: “…or an emergency situation that makes the aircraft unsafe to fly.”

For a stop-minded takeoff, this is the verbiage: “…or any situation that gives us a safety concern.” 

The difference between “unsafe to fly” and “safety concern” is significant. The former means unequivocally that the airplane will not make it into the air, or if it does lift off, that it will not keep flying. Or as Romeo put it, “When we say ‘unsafe to fly,’ what we're talking about is based on the situation [that] the airplane cannot sustain flight. We can't get it airborne; or it won't sustain flight.”

When runway length is critical, the last thing the pilots have time for is to interpret CAS messages. In the Falcon 2000 simulator that we flew for the FlightSafety course, there are 25 red CAS messages that are not inhibited during takeoff, according to Romeo. But there are few circumstances where it isn’t better to simply keep accelerating and take off, then either troubleshoot the problem from a safe altitude or return and land quickly. “A normal person cannot read the CAS message, interpret what it is, and decide what to do about it,” he said. “For a critical runway, what we're talking about is the CAS messages have to be an all-or-nothing [decision].” 

In any case, statistics support the “GO” decision. In the FAA’s “Takeoff Training Safety Aid,” a study of 97 air transport overrun rejected takeoff accidents and incidents through 2003 revealed that 52 percent could have been prevented by simply continuing the takeoff; more than 400 lives would have been saved. 

The real meat of the training session was, of course, the simulator time. I usually like to describe in detail what I’ve done when writing about training, but in this case, I don’t want to give it away. The surprise element is critically important. Obviously, because I started in the right seat, I had some knowledge of what to expect. But the session was even more valuable for my having experienced both the PF and PNF roles.

Romeo had explained how important it is for the PNF to look at more than just the airspeed tape during takeoff and call out the speeds and rotation. The engine gauges are designed analog-style to help make it easier to see differences between the way each engine is running, and I soon got into the habit of glancing at those while watching the airspeed, too.

For each takeoff, we assessed whether it was a go- or stop-minded takeoff and then mentally geared up for what that meant. It took Wolfer and me a few tries before we got comfortable working as a crew and both making “stop” or “go” callouts, but it soon became natural. And we both liked the brevity of the “go” and “stop” commands. 

When we made mistakes, it was usually because one of us was thinking too much about what a CAS message meant instead of sticking with the original plan based on which kind of runway we were using. There were times where one of us as PNF called “GO” and the other aborted the takeoff, but that’s why we were practicing in a simulator. 

One example of a mistake it was good to learn about was during a go-minded takeoff on a length-constrained runway. With Wolfer at the controls, just before V1, the number two engine failed. I said, “Engine failure-STOP!” and Wolfer correctly aborted the takeoff. But we ended up overrunning because I didn’t sing out quickly enough. I should have said “STOP” first instead of taking up valuable time saying “engine failure.” 

For those takeoffs where we made it into the air with an engine fire, electrical problem, or other serious issue, we had to figure out how to get back on the ground quickly. The target was two minutes, and we both got to try 90-270 returns and closed traffic patterns, which was a lot of fun in the Falcon 2000. 

The scenarios kept getting harder and involved many more failures than simply engines quitting, for example, blown tires, thrust reverser deployment, rear compartment fires, etc. The icing on the cake was a scenario that replicated one of the worst business jet accidents in recent years—this was the one at the beginning of this article—but it was so dramatic and enlightening that I don’t want to say more, so as not to diminish the value to pilots planning to take this training.  

In the debrief, Romeo said that it is better for crews to take the course together so that during an emergency, each pilot knows what the other is doing. He doesn’t recommend one pilot taking the training and teaching it to other pilots.

The beauty of Go/No-Go Rejected Takeoff course is that not only does it force pilots to think about what they will do in case of a problem during takeoff, but it gives them a realistic action plan that really works. In my opinion, this is an amazingly effective program and one of the best training events I’ve experienced at FlightSafety; this course is also something that all jet pilots should undergo.