I'd continue unless it was something extremely obviously unsafe. I'm not trusting ATC, they weren't part of our abort brief and they could be telling us to abort because our flow time is no longer valid or something dumb like that.

The only legitimate reason to high speed abort for ATC is a runway incursion further downfield, but you better be sure you can stop in time.

 

This is the most insane thing I learned coming to the airlines.

Control change at one of the highest risk moments is asinine.

If we need to abort, say abort and the FO slams the throttles back and deploys the reversers. It’s not difficult.

 

Until the tiller is needed…

 

Here’s one:

Why are you being mean to me now? …..you were nice to me in the lavatory.
Cymbal crash.

 

Yep. Came here after military, 91 and 135 plus government contractor flying all being PF aborts. (In the E2, left seat almost always PF, but you flew from both seats at PIC and SIC (CAPC and 2P)

Was a FO/FO pairing in initial qual on 757/67.

300 series Sims. I'm PM. Right seat. Other Fo in left seat.

80 knots thrust normal,
​Around 120 with a 140 V1
Fire light/bell/eyc.
PM (FO/me) "engine fire, ABORT"

Speedbrakes didn't even get up before simulator paused and a 80+ year old retired captain NSLI reads us both the riot act for a good 15 minutes how "ONLY A DELTA CAPTAIN MAY EVER CALL ABORT, YOU F/Os CANNOT COMPREHEND THE DANGER"

Mind you, I was around 10,000 hours, 5k military turboprop, 5k turbine helicopter and the other guy was a retired USAF C5 guy with similar hours.

Neither of us had ever had a control swap on an abort on any plane, and any crewmember, be it pilot, NFO, flight engineer or loadmaster could and did call abort up to V1/Cat Shot.

 

Usually it sounds more like “Delta stop, STOP!” And probably because AA has just entered your runway.

 

I disagree. I'd rather be on the ground safe and mildly annoyed at ATC than continue. You don't have the luxury of time during a takeoff roll to know if its a life threatening situation or a clerical error. ATC could absolutely see something that we don't, and you're never going to be wrong for erring on the side of caution.

 

That's not the side of caution though. High speed aborts are super high risk. That's why we pretty much only abort for a fire or engine failure.

Traffic on the runway is the only reason I can think of to abort for when ATC calls it.

 

traffic overhead is another. Like the FedEx/SWA incident in AUS. WN didn’t abort and that could have ended horribly

 

even that gets a little weird. a crossing aircraft on the lax north side high speeds will be easily cleared by a normal takeoff (at least in a narrowbody), but a near-v1 abort will probably have your nose inside the crossing traffic.

as always, it’s never cut-and-dry