Narrative:

On short final a crop duster was observed taxiing south on the taxiway adjacent to the runway. No radio calls were made from this aircraft. Around the time our aircraft the reached runway threshold the crop duster lifted off from the taxiway and flew south directly beside us. By the time we had fully realized that the crop duster had taken off on the taxiway we were already at his altitude and made the decision to not go around. We landed the aircraft; cleared the area and then took off. When in the pattern we cleared the area again and couldn't find the aircraft. They never made any radio calls on frequency. Another company aircraft of ours observed the incident in the pattern as well. Both us and the other company aircraft were making radio calls to the CTAF traffic as well as other aircraft that were landing or flying a short approach to runway 35. I believe that the pilot of the crop duster was upset that the small airport was busy and that they thought they could 'get back' at us by scaring us on final. That or they were rushing themselves and didn't want to wait for our traffic and the traffic in the pattern behind us before taking off. I think the situation could have been solved by the pilot of the crop duster making radio calls throughout the situation. They could've informed us they intended to takeoff opposite direction instead of a taxiway and we could have extended our downwind for them or flown a few 360s to clear up space.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Student pilot at a non towered airport reported an aircraft departed opposite direction to them from a taxiway adjacent to their landing runway.

Narrative: On short final a crop duster was observed taxiing south on the taxiway adjacent to the runway. No radio calls were made from this aircraft. Around the time our aircraft the reached runway threshold the crop duster lifted off from the taxiway and flew south directly beside us. By the time we had fully realized that the crop duster had taken off on the taxiway we were already at his altitude and made the decision to not go around. We landed the aircraft; cleared the area and then took off. When in the pattern we cleared the area again and couldn't find the aircraft. They never made any radio calls on frequency. Another company aircraft of ours observed the incident in the pattern as well. Both us and the other company aircraft were making radio calls to the CTAF traffic as well as other aircraft that were landing or flying a short approach to Runway 35. I believe that the pilot of the crop duster was upset that the small airport was busy and that they thought they could 'get back' at us by scaring us on final. That or they were rushing themselves and didn't want to wait for our traffic and the traffic in the pattern behind us before taking off. I think the situation could have been solved by the pilot of the crop duster making radio calls throughout the situation. They could've informed us they intended to takeoff opposite direction instead of a taxiway and we could have extended our downwind for them or flown a few 360s to clear up space.

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.