Air carrier First Officer reported encountering a vehicle crossing the runway as their aircraft was accelerating in the takeoff roll. The crew continued the takeoff; and ATC instructed subsequent aircraft to go around.

Date: 2024-04 · Aircraft: Commercial Fixed Wing · Phase: takeoff

Anomalies: conflict-ground-conflict|critical|conflict-airborne-conflict|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-clearance|ground-event-encounter-vehicle|ground-incursion-runway

Synopsis

Air carrier First Officer reported encountering a vehicle crossing the runway as their aircraft was accelerating in the takeoff roll. The crew continued the takeoff; and ATC instructed subsequent aircraft to go around.

Narrative

We were departing Runway 18L from CLT. This flight was delayed due to Estimated Departure Clearance Time (EDCT) into EWR. Tower cleared us for takeoff and began the takeoff roll; and somewhere around the 100 knot call out I noticed a white van a couple thousand feet ahead of us cross the hold short line and passed in front of us and across the runway. They passed by so fast that we barely had a second to process what had just happened. We were both startled by the van being on the runway; but before we could effectively process it; the van was gone. We continued the takeoff normally and rotated on schedule. During rotation we heard the tower command the aircraft behind us to go around and to immediately turn left to 090°. Had the tower not turned the aircraft; they may have been a proximity collision conflict to us. After commanding the landing aircraft to go around the tower controller began yelling at the van driver to get him to identify himself; in which the van driver either ignored or was not paying attention to the radio. Another six seconds later and we would have been a collision hazard with the van. We were almost a midair collision hazard with the airplane executing the go around.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.