Canada and US require border crossing formalities for everybody, not just aircraft. A completely different situation.
Radio use is not required at uncontrolled airports in the US.
The omission of a flight plan had no bearing on this accident.
Although I started it, I haven’t read through the whole thread, but I’m asking myself one thing: did the helicopter make the required calls? Even if the Jodel had gone ‘dark’, they should at least have listened out and thus should have been aware of the presence of the helo. Is that mentioned somewhere?
I have never found position reports to be all that useful.
One has to be generally looking around anyway, but traffic is spotted only in the most optimal conditions: good contrast, 1-2nm away perhaps, not on a collision course (targets on a collision course are stationary in the field of view of both aircraft), and only within the small arc of visibility out of that particular aircraft type. And lots of people give out poor position reports because that’s all they can do / can’t be bothered / are trying to hide something / are trying to get a clearance to land etc before somebody who is actually ahead of them, etc.
It’s like one of those “cheaper” devices which for Mode C/S targets give you a relative altitude but no azimuth. Unless you have a periscope and a rubber neck, you can’t do much with it.
These unfortunate accidents mostly have no total solution. The risk could often have been reduced, however. In the case of un-notified border crossing, a strict flight plan requirement would simply stop the flights – because you can’t flight plan a route which goes all over the place. So, yeah, problem solved because the other aircraft is not there anymore.
Peter wrote:
In the case of un-notified border crossing, a strict flight plan requirement would simply stop the flights – because you can’t flight plan a route which goes all over the place.
Sure you can. You use a STAY item in the route part of the flight plan. It’s intended for that very purpose.
Peter wrote:
because you can’t flight plan a route which goes all over the place.
You can. You can write all kinds of things in the /RMK under point 18. For instance TOUCH AND GO ON GLACIERS xxxx and yyyy, SIGHTSEEING AROUND THE ISLAND, AEROBATICS AT zzzz 6000 FT AND BELOW and so on. The requirement is only to actually file a plan when crossing an international border.
I must say this accident turned out very bizarre. There must be more to this. What about the accident report?
@Mooney Driver you seem to be so certain of your stance, can I ask you some questions?
1 Were you in court?
2 Have you read the full court transcript?
3 Have you seen and read the full accident report?
4 Do you have good knowledge of the Itslian judicial system?
5 Did the helicopter enter French airspace without a flight plan and without air 2 air communication?
6 If there was air 2 air communication in what language did it take place and under what law should it have taken place?
7 How far into Italian airspace did the collision take place?
Peter wrote:
I have never found position reports to be all that useful
I certainly have, they are a key element in my local flying, but they are certainly not mandatory under law or regulation. They are just a way for pilots to cooperate if they choose to do so – at their discretion.
gallois wrote:
Do you have good knowledge of the Italian judicial system?
This is a point worth exploring. I think for the purposes of a criminal conviction, including criminal negligence, the important issue is (oddly enough) whether any laws were broken that led to the accident. As far as I can tell, only one was broken (omission of the pointless cross border flight plan) and it was immaterial to the accident. Otherwise as far as I understand the flights of both aircraft were routine and within the law.
LeSving wrote:
I must say this accident turned out very bizarre. There must be more to this.
Pythonesque, it seems to me. Notwithstanding that the accident apparently involved some publicly known figure, and I think is probably motivated by a witch hunt on that basis plus the valueless (at best) defense of government authority on the border, I’d be interested to hear if any other law was broken. Any ideas on how this accident could possibly be prosecuted as a criminal matter?
Peter wrote:
Italy (…) cannot prosecute a French aeroclub president. He will need to stay out of Italy.
Sure Italy can prosecute a French aeroclub president, for something that happened in Italy; maybe also for something that “happened in France” but led to systematic breach of Italian law, such as not filing FPLs for border crossing. As to staying out of Italy, that does not work / is not sufficient. The EU has a system of EU-wide execution of sentences. If I get a sentence against your business in any EU country, the UK legal system will enforce the sentence (e.g. by forced payment out of your business’ bank account). Similarly, a criminal sentence is carried out. While France doesn’t extradite its nationals, it executes the sentence in its own prison system. Meaning, if Italy sentences the club president to a fine, France will take it out of his/her bank account / wages / pension / other assets / …; in case of a prison sentence, he/she will serve it in a French prison.
And if he/she ever leaves France for any other country, that country can extradite him to Italy.
Jacko wrote:
The Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship has put his signature to, and published, a document saying that there is no such border and that we can move around the Shengen area of the EU “without giving borders a second thought”.
The commissioner (a politician) can wax lyrical all he wants and make such non-legally binding (to the states, or the EU) statements all he wants. FPLs for crossing internal borders are not the only “impediment to free flow of people, goods and capital” that the intra-EU part of the Schengen area still has. Another one is the limit to transport of cash, cash equivalents and monetary precious metals, unless you prenotify the customs on each side of each internal border. The EU-wide threshold for this is avgas money for about 20h for a twin (at German prices)… that is not a silly amount of money to take with you when you go on a cross-Europe vacation by plane. To make things worse, some countries have national thresholds that are significantly lower. How the EU can tolerate such “national” deviations, just shows, again, that the four horsemen of the infocalypse are just as effective to destroy real world liberties as Internet liberties.
Peter wrote:
I have never found position reports to be all that useful.
Depends on where you are. We should not forget that we are talking about mountain flying here!
In the mountains, such position reports are a) typically much more helpfull as the position can be reported more accurate than over open field (over the south slope of Mt. x …) and b) much more important as you often can’t see beyond the next bend in the valley/next mountain and therefore you need the Information that someone is approaching the same pass from the other side…
Malibuflyer wrote:
you often can’t see beyond the next bend in the valley/next mountain and therefore you need the Information that someone is approaching the same pass from the other side…
I thought VHF transmissions needed line-of-sight, and thus one wouldn’t get the transmissions of people beyond the “next bend”?
