I’m planning to fly EGTR Elstree-EBOS Ostend-EHLE Lelystad at the weekend.
EBOS is no PN for arrival from the UK, but I am hoping to use EHMZ Midden-Zeeland as my alternate, which is one hour PN for arrival from the UK.
Would you contact EHMZ/make a Gendec for the alternate case, or just divert and inform them on first contact that you need immigration after landing (and be prepared to wait an hour)? We’re stopping for lunch so it’s no problem to wait, I just don’t want any “trouble”.
I think this is a long standing discussion, the short answer is YES
For Ostend alternates, I tend to pick 24h big ATC airfields as alternates, I would personally, pick Southend, Lille, LeTouquet or Rotterdam
Ostend probably have no clue where Maiden-Zeelend is? if you do that diversion, you should expect to wait more than 1h for lunch (or simply no one around to care, so going back to UK is not an issue 
)
Thanks, Ibra. Noted, but I’ll use Rotterdam as the alternate as it’s in the right direction.
The answer has to be NO otherwise any in-flight emergency would land you (no pun intended) in hot water. You must be able to land.
The PN, or lack of it, affects what happens to you post-landing.
Assuming the PN is for customs/immigration:
If/when the 9mm carrying people arrive if they are nice, they will let you stay overnight, or refuel and fly on, etc. If they aren’t nice, they could take action like a fine, although I don’t recall a case of a fine where it was a real “have to land” situation. I have heard of fines imposed but they were for “normal” arrivals where PN was simply not done. They can also force you to give another PN for a departure, meaning you have to stay in a hotel, perhaps.
We’ve done all this before but landing where CUSTOMS is needed could be a real problem. That particular situation should not arise again (explained in the thread) but that applies only to Germany.
The safe thing is to shoot off an email with the UK GAR attached and some covering text.
In this case (short flight) my alternate would be Shoreham
FWIW Vliegclub Rotterdam at EHRD are happy for me to show up on a diversion extra-Schengen without PN for handling with them:
I don’t think that is necessary, only if you are sure that you are visiting Rotterdam.
What a sensible reply; I’m tempted to go there another time just because they’ve been helpful :-)
… which however shows that the PPR is not really necessary in the first place…
Peter wrote:
The answer has to be NO otherwise any in-flight emergency would land you (no pun intended) in hot water. You must be able to land.
Of course, but a weather diversion to a planned alternate is not an emergency. I personally never plan a PPR airport as alternate without getting permission first.
Diverting from destination to your 1st alternate is usually not an emergency
If you can’t land in 1st alternate due to lack of PPR and YOU opt to go to 2nd alternate that would be a serious undertaking: it will surely involve lot of freestyle flying than a well planned leg and if you add weather & fuel contraints, death or accidents are not far away…
