Narrative:

During preflight setup; we had 8 MEL's to review and manage. One of the MEL's was no ACARS. With multiple MEL's and manual weight/balance; clearance; and ATIS we were in and out of our normal routine. As we would accomplish an event a distraction would arise that took us away from normal setup duties. As I called for clearance we were again taken away from our setup duties by the ramp agent. In my mind we had called for clearance; but in reality; we did not. As we finished cockpit setup and prepared for engine start and pushback we were distracted again by an alert. After taking care of the alert we were ready for start and push. We called for push and were cleared for start. Just as we prepared to start the first engine our APU had an automatic shutdown alert. We lost total ship power and had to stop the push and get pulled back to the chocks. We had the following alerts in sequence: APU automatic shutdown; bat charging; emergency power test fail. We accomplished the respective checklists with maintenance supervision on the radio. After restoring power and returning the jet to ops normal we completed our checks and taxied for takeoff. We had a minor delay while we consulted again with maintenance about the bat charging alert; upon corrective action we taxied to the runway. After takeoff we were sent to departure frequency. It was then we noticed no frequency in the selector and both realized we had not obtained clearance on the ground. We then were notified of or squawk and continued. We coordinated with ZZZ and confirmed our full route clearance. Total distraction combined with multiple mechanical events during critical cockpit setup; start and pushback. Multiple distractions within short periods of time along with non-normal operations (i.e. No ACARS) led to our missing the call for clearance. Task saturation was also a causal factor.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The flight crew of a wide body cargo aircraft reported that; due to many preflight distractions; they took off without receiving an ATC route clearance.

Narrative: During preflight setup; we had 8 MEL's to review and manage. One of the MEL's was no ACARS. With multiple MEL's and manual weight/balance; clearance; and ATIS we were in and out of our normal routine. As we would accomplish an event a distraction would arise that took us away from normal setup duties. As I called for clearance we were again taken away from our setup duties by the Ramp Agent. In my mind we had called for clearance; but in reality; we did not. As we finished cockpit setup and prepared for engine start and pushback we were distracted again by an alert. After taking care of the alert we were ready for start and push. We called for push and were cleared for start. Just as we prepared to start the first engine our APU had an AUTO SHUTDOWN ALERT. We lost total ship power and had to stop the push and get pulled back to the chocks. We had the following alerts in sequence: APU AUTO SHUTDOWN; BAT CHARGING; EMER PWR TEST FAIL. We accomplished the respective checklists with maintenance supervision on the radio. After restoring power and returning the jet to ops normal we completed our checks and taxied for takeoff. We had a minor delay while we consulted again with maintenance about the BAT CHARGING alert; upon corrective action we taxied to the runway. After takeoff we were sent to departure frequency. It was then we noticed no frequency in the selector and both realized we had not obtained clearance on the ground. We then were notified of or squawk and continued. We coordinated with ZZZ and confirmed our full route clearance. Total distraction combined with multiple mechanical events during critical cockpit setup; start and pushback. Multiple distractions within short periods of time along with non-normal operations (i.e. no ACARS) led to our missing the call for clearance. Task saturation was also a causal factor.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.