A couple of developments and reactions.
I was informed yesterday night that based aircraft at ZRH are now exempt from the VFR / Light IFR ban. This has yet to be confirmed but it appears that cooler heads prevailed for now. I also understand that the ban was NOT requested or initiated by the controllers but were part of the general reduction on capacity which is upheld. There have been numerous interventions both on official and personal level to restore the facilities for the based airplanes at first and to fully normal as soon as practicable. AOPA Switzerland and others have taken action.
It may well be that the international reaction and support for the controllers in question has given them a deserved re-assurance.
One example here:
http://www.ifatca.org/2019/07/swiss-jc/
AOPA Switzerland (in German)
https://aopa.ch/public/publikationen/newsletter/newsletter-juli-2019/vfr-suspendierung
I would like to stress that the controllers and everyone else who is fighting this travesty deserve our full support. The way aviation people are treated in Switzerland can only be addressed if ALL of the aviation family stand united in this. The fact that those who have to bear the full risk have worked to convince their superiors to lift the ban at least for those whose economic survival is at stake shows that various appeals have not gone unheard.
If all the work done to promote and implement just culture in aviation globally is not to have been in vain, then any and all such transgressions trying to go back to the days of blame and shame need to be addressed forcefully and internationally if aviation safety is not to be damaged beyond repair.
I have suggested openly that the TSB should investigate the effects of this threat on flight safety. I don’t know whether this suggestion will be picked up but i know it has been heard or rather read. As the TSB is one of the organisations who suffer directly from the effects of this, I hope they will give it a thought.
The original NOTAM suspending VFR has been lifted.
Instead today there is a VFR ban for “adverse weather”. i suppose they did anticipate wind conditions which so far have not materialized.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Maybe this needs to be challenged in the European Court for human rights, but that result would take years. In the mean time, the only thing feasible is to avoid flying there.
Agree that the ATCO in question here should take his case to the European level.
It would be nice if somehow the “rich and famous” with private jets could somehow be convinced to boycott Switzerland as a result of this case. That would cause a real stir in St Moritz and Gstaad especially, if corporations bought in then Geneva and Zurich too, and have far more impact than anything us poor bottom-feeder GA folks could make. Swiss politicians normally react mostly if there is an economic fall-out. Don’t see it happening though. A shame.
Peter wrote:
Neither prosecution is right, and neither will achieve its apparent aim which is to prevent errors/mistakes/etc.
I don’t really think that this is the aim of the prosecution, and least not in this case. It is more about punishing a mistake on the part of an over-zealous public prosecutor. The charge was essentially “disturbing public transport”…. which is a real misnomer given the situation and result. The real scandal is that the judgement was upheld right up to the Swiss supreme court.
LeSving wrote:
How can the threshold for what is considered a criminal act be lowered without changing the laws?
It’s court rulings and precedent that define the limits of laws. Normally a law is tested via court case and the judgement then sets a precedent for future cases. However, precedents can be “updated” with the passage of time, and that seems to be what is happening here. There is an excellent recent film on this called On the Basis of Sex
Timothy wrote:
Given the international shortage of ATCOs, why wouldn’t any Swiss ATCO not simply move to Germany, France or UK, rather than strike or work to rule, if there is such a risk of imprisonment?
Or why not simply give the civil ATC contract for Swiss airspace to the German DFS? ;-)
@ Timothy: I guess this is too recent a development. But I think this is what may very well happen.
@ James: VFR traffic is always the first to get banned at ZRH, no matter wheather it is weather or reduction in capacity. And no, in no incident VFR traffic was involved to my knowledge, certainly not based traffic.
The way it works with the court is that based on the TSB report, the courts decide whether to start prosecution for gross negligence and disruption of air traffic. The latter is the same paragraph under which hijackings would be dealt with. Alone the fact that they do this is a huge insult.
Once a prosecution is started, it is up to the local courts to reach a verdict, which then can be appealed on up to the federal court. However, the appeals can only determine whether a lower court verdict corresponds to the letter of the law or not. So the local courts can make a lot of policy.
Or why not simply give the civil ATC contract for Swiss airspace to the German DFS?
They’d still have to practice under Swiss law though?
And it already sounds like there’s a problem with it.
To my mind this sounds like it needs to be addressed at the political level. Having the same law for ‘disruption of traffic’ and highjacking is abusrd, to put it mildly.
chflyer wrote:
However, precedents can be “updated” with the passage of time, and that seems to be what is happening here
I don’t agree. With “just culture” you cannot have laws and practices that gets “updated” on the whim of a single person. There is no way “just culture” will work unless this is explicitly defined in laws and regulations. It’s still not clear to me what these cases are all about.
