Widebody Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Total 22500
Workload; Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Ground Incursion Runway
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure; Human Factors
Holding short of runway 19; as landing traffic passed overhead; I understood the tower controller to call us and issue the clearance 'line up and are you ready for an immediate departure?' This was expected having watched the sequencing of several arrivals and departures in front of us. There was no visible traffic on final and verified with the TCAS targets on the Navigation Display. The First Officer (FO) answered the radio call but the tower immediately asked again to 'verify ready for immediate departure.' The FO answered and again the tower asked if we 'were ready for immediate departure.' It was at this point I discovered the FO's mic selector was in the wrong position; so I answered the tower and verified we were 'lining up and hold and ready for immediate departure.' The tower then asked if we were lining up on the runway. The FO answered affirmative and ready for departure after selecting the proper mic switch. We had made the turn on U2 past the hold short line and the front of the aircraft was already on the runway by this time. Shortly thereafter; we were cleared for takeoff. We were not cleared for an immediate takeoff as expected however.During climb out; departure control asked us to call the tower on a discrete frequency; 118.6; using our other radio. The supervisor introduced himself and advised me we were not cleared to line up on the runway before we actually started to line up and hold. I could not understand everything he said because of language barriers and radio clarity but I did get the impression that this would not be pursued any further. He told me that this could have been dangerous and to 'be more careful next time.' As far as I am aware no other traffic was impacted by our actions.I don't think we will ever eliminate events caused by human interaction. Even though we were not fatigued; we were flying on the back side of our clock. We left the hotel over 2 hours prior to report time; around midnight [destination airport] time; just to fight the traffic and get through the security and passport control. Why did I hear something that wasn't said? How did the FO select the wrong mic switch? He'd been talking with ground control previously without issue. During taxi; we dealt with an FMC that kept de-rating our takeoff power when the TPS required MAX power and it kept changing our ICAO climb profile to reduce power at 1;000 feet AGL instead of 1500 feet AGL. This took attention and effort even though it had nothing to do with our incident. The controller language barrier and speaking Chinese to native aircraft and broken English to others caused us to be partially out of the loop. All of these sorts of things will continue to contribute to human events in the future. In this particular case however; runway hold short stop bars would have prevented this.What we can do however; is what we are doing with the Threat Error Management; or TEM. Even though the lining up on the runway without a clearance made it through all the holes per se; what didn't happen was causing another aircraft to go around or causing an incident or accident because we were quiet and sterile; we had been paying attention to the previous 4 sequences of arrivals and departures. Per SOP; we knew we were next and that the final was clear because we all looked visually and verified the TCAS targets agreed. We did have situational awareness with regards to the other traffic. The more dangerous threats did not make it through all the holes. I believe that had the FO answered the first radio call; the tower controller would have cleared us to line up and hold and be ready for an immediate departure and the event would not have occurred at all. However; because we were not transmitting; he kept repeating his question rather than issuing us the clearance.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
An Air Carrier flight crew reported a runway incursion that took place in PEK when the crew thought they were cleared for immediate takeoff and had crossed the hold short line. ATC then cleared them for takeoff; but when airborne advised they had not been given a line up and wait clearance.