Narrative:

Left the ramp on taxi out; was instructed by ground (121.7) to take the normal route of wg-wa-wv to 15L for departure. Read back clearance; started out wg. Before making the right hand turn to head north on wa we used the standard practice of looking/clearing the direction of turn. To the right; the bright lights of an aircraft were noticed approaching us heading south on wa at a high rate of speed. I immediately applied the brakes and stopped as an aircraft continued our direction; then rotated directly in front of us on taxiway wa. A [corporate jet]. I also heard the aircraft as it went right in front of our nose lifting off. I queried ATC as to what happened; and to verify that a corporate jet took off from 15L. ATC responded that the aircraft did in fact take off of 15L.as a crew; our threats were night time conditions and the observation of an unusual situation considering standard airport taxi ops for the particular runway configuration. No error (that we were told) occurred. Both myself and the first officer were vigilant and used standard company safety procedures.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Regional Jet Captain reported that during taxi for a night departure at IAH a departing aircraft was perceived to be on the taxiway they were about to turn onto even though the corporate jet was actually taking off on the runway parallel to their taxiway.

Narrative: Left the ramp on taxi out; was instructed by ground (121.7) to take the normal route of WG-WA-WV to 15L for departure. Read back clearance; started out WG. Before making the right hand turn to head north on WA we used the standard practice of looking/clearing the direction of turn. To the right; the bright lights of an aircraft were noticed approaching us heading south on WA at a high rate of speed. I immediately applied the brakes and stopped as an aircraft continued our direction; then rotated DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF US on taxiway WA. A [corporate jet]. I also heard the aircraft as it went right in front of our nose lifting off. I queried ATC as to what happened; and to verify that a corporate jet took off from 15L. ATC responded that the aircraft did in fact take off of 15L.As a crew; our threats were night time conditions and the observation of an unusual situation considering standard airport taxi ops for the particular runway configuration. No error (that we were told) occurred. Both myself and the FO were vigilant and used standard company safety procedures.

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.