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Are we over-policed (and under-served)?

I can speak only for France and the answer is an overwhelming ABSOLUTELY !

France has not one, but two police forces dedicated to aviation activities: Gendarmerie de Transport Ariennes (GTA) and the Police de l’Air et Frontières ( PAF) .

The main Aviation Police is the GTA, here from Wiki:

The Gendarmerie des transports aériens (GTA) is a specialized training of the French National Gendarmerie. With more than 1,000 personnel qualified in aeronautics and airport security, it is located in the “airside” area of ​​the largest airports and placed on duty with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) by decree of 28 April 20063.

Present on major metropolitan and overseas airports, it is competent throughout the national territory to ensure:

The traditional missions of the gendarmerie (judicial, administrative and military police and military defense)
Air traffic control missions: aircraft control, findings of violations of aeronautical legislation, judicial investigations following accidents and incidents of aircraft
Security missions of the regulated access security zone (ZSAR) of airports.
These personnel receive an aeronautical training initially given internally and then at the National School of Civil Aviation to acquire a professional knowledge of this sector

Wow, over 1,000 dedicated personnel …

Let’s see, with just half a dozen large airports in France, that’s over 150 full-time officers per platform !

Another example is Toussus le Noble: This medium size, almost exclusively prop GA light aircraft aérodrome has a full time GTA base with about a dozen full-time officers.

Imagine a little village with say, less than 100 residents, with a police force that represents over 10% of the population !

Obviously, with so much time and so little “action” things become absurd.

Recent example: A pilot I know had a recent prop strike, which now has a full-blown investigation file with interviews of pilot, pax and maintenance personnel.

Is it like this in other European countries ?

Last Edited by Michael at 02 Jun 07:10
FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

Michael wrote:

Another example is Toussus le Noble: This medium size, almost exclusively prop GA light aircraft aérodrome has a full time GTA base with about a dozen full-time officers.

And with all this presence we still cant fly there direct from the UK

We are overpoliced – you still have to give twelve hours notice to the police for a flight within the CTA between Ireland/NI, NI/Great Britain, Isle of Man/GB etc. from a typical GA airfield. This is obviously completely impractical – I think only 25% of the time do I actually depart at the time I filed on the police form due to plans changing, traffic jam on the roads, minor tech issues or the weather.

Unfortunately I think the intra-CTA GAR requirement has also indirectly resulted in fatal accidents with pilots having bad cases of “get there itis” because they told the authorities they would be arriving at a certain place at a certain time and running into weather they couldn’t handle. There was a Jodel that crashed very close to its destination airfield due to VFR-into-IMC on a flight from Andreas to (IIRC) Derryogue near Newry.

The police say they still need this so they can build up an idea of travel patterns. If that’s all they need, then a notification is enough, the 12 hour notice isn’t necessary.

Last Edited by alioth at 02 Jun 09:02
Andreas IOM

The notification periods are a big gripe because they are totally impractical and do not recognise the needs of GA. Moreover the legislation is not enforced, which encourages abuse. However, this whole subject is caught up with the general hysteria of boarder controls and doubtless seen as a political hot potato in terms of any relaxation. It is never the less “odd” that the boating community is now granted freedom of movement, but the same “concession” has not been applied to aviation.

I guess the point is to provide Boarder Control sufficient time to intercept a landing flight should they wish to carry out a spot check. By informing them of the arrival of a flight the day before, potentially they have sufficient time to mobilise the “troops” to the designated port of arrival. Inevitably the argument becomes how much time they should be afforded to organise their diary for the day.

In years gone by when a boat arrived at a port it was required to fly the yellow duster and report its arrival to the nearest Boarder Control. In the meantime the skipper and crew were required to stay on the vessel (other than to give notification) – in those days mobile ’phones barely existed! Boarder Control would then determine whether they wished to attend and depending on their determination the skipper and crew either remained with the vessel or were free to go. Of course it required an enormous amount of man power and was very unpopular given the hours that could be spent waiting around. I suspect in the end it was recognised that the “risk” was far outweighed by the relatively small amount of abuse that took place, the time and effort required to police the process and its unpopularity with some very influencial people (after all Ted Heath was a skipper).

Moreover I suspect anyone intending to land contraband or illegal persons would neither fly the yellow duster or notify Boarder Control. The recent arrests have with doubt all been orchestrated through intelligence from one source or another.

GA is no different with the abundance of uncontrolled airstrips, but at least in theory the need to file a flight plan means there is some record of the movement whereas no such requirement exists for pleasure vessels. Some pleasure vessels do have AIS, equivalent to a transponder, but many do not, and it is entirely legal to switch off the AIS.

On the other hand Board Control have presence on the water and are entitled to intercept and search a vessel which they feel may be in transit, which of course is not possible in the air, short of scrambling a fighter or rotary interceptor.

Still one of the key elements of BREXIT appears to be the desire that we should have control over our boarders, and if this is what the great British public truly wish then I doubt there is any political mileage in being seen to have one set of rules for the majority and a different set of rules for a few, but at least no one seems to want to do anything about a system which doesnt appear to be causing too much of a problem and would cost in politcal capital and actual money a deal to doing anything about.

I suspect relying on the various sources of intelligence is probably the best bet, but I doubt somehow we can look forward to any further relaxation for GA – I hope I am wrong. Everything else apart the freedom of law abiding citizens who have the ability to transport themselves between the continent and the UK is a freedom that would be greatly dimished if burdened any further with red tape, and more to the point, is unlikely to confer any significant benefit on reducing the flow of contraband or illegal persons into our country.

Michael wrote:

Is it like this in other European countries ?

No.

huv
EKRK, Denmark

An interesting discussion here is the likely motivation that drives this.

There have already been lots of posts on EuroGA about the French situation and one funny one is here. Based on what I have seen myself I would say that resonates perfectly

The UK situation is IMHO not the same in that the police here seem a bit more competent and I think the reason the GAR situation is maintained is pure job protection.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Actually my OP was directed towards general Aviation police, not customs & immigrations, which are a whole ’nother subject !

In fact, the Customs & Immigration situation in the Paris area is a classic example of grossly under-served.

I suppose that since the vast majority of GA Pilots are law-abiding citizens they very rarely have any contact with the aviation police authorities – and THAT is exactly my point : The actual NEED for a specialized police dedicated to Aviation is hugely over estimated.

Last Edited by Michael at 03 Jun 08:30
FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

AFAIK we don’t have a dedicated aviation police in Germany. The Bundespolizei (federal police force ) is responsible for airports, while the Zoll (customs) deals with customs. So far I only had one encounter with them, at Hannover Airport. All they needed was my ID and license. Since I am still a student pilot, I didn’t even have that. But the checks took only a minute anyways.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

MedEwok wrote:

AFAIK we don’t have a dedicated aviation police in Germany.

No, there is none. Luckily. To the point that it can actually be difficult to get a policeman to visit a smaller airport terminal. Since some time there are these explosive tests at the security gate. Triggered by an algorithm (which obviously changes on a frequent base) from the number of beeps of the body scanner and an element of randomness. Another algorithm will then trigger a (false) positive result of the explosive test every now and then. Whenever that happens, the security gate gets blocked and the police is called for further investigations including questioning the person who triggered the alarm.
Only that at my homebase airport the police forces have been cut to a level at which they don’t regard the general aviation terminal as part of their area of competence any longer. So any policeman in range will be sent to the GA terminal, often normal “street police” from the adjacent motorway, in such a case which can take – and it does take! – 20-30 minutes. During which time half of your passengers will be standing in front of the security check and half of them behind and you will be busy on the phone delaying flight plans and extending airport slots…
On the road it is even worse (or better, depending on the point of view). The last time I got into a police control while driving must be over ten years ago. You can get away with almost anything now while driving as long as you don’t cause an accident or trigger a speed trap. So no. Where I live we are definitely not over-policed.

EDDS - Stuttgart

A low tailwheel hours pilot in our Jodel Group went off the runway on landing in nil wind. The low experience ATC had never handled an accident before. He did everything correctly, but also notified the police, which is not required for such accidents.
When I arrived, the aircraft was with the maintenance firm, but the pilot had disappeared.
After wandering around with the SATCO, I spotted him in the police car.
The police officer told us we were being arrested for obstructing him in the course of his duty when we tapped on the window and refused to go away. We stood our ground, and he eventually backed down.
After a negative breath test, for over an hour the pilot ( a forensic psychologist) had been questioned as to why he had lost control, despite the engineer saying there was no fault with the aircraft. He didn’t know. (PIO)

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom
15 Posts
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