Hi everyone
I have a very specific question on ICAO flight plan procedures.
If a flight is not taking place, but the PIC fails to send a cancellation message, what are the consequences?
I am asking, because I heard rumours (let’s say “from a reputable source”) that the flight plan is automatically activated at EOBT and thus causing the search and rescue procedure to start after EET.
This would be very different to the USA, where such a ghost flight plan simply gets dropped from the system after about 2 hours (however, I would always cancel the plan if possible). Apparently, Eurocontrol calls these cases of flights not taking place without cancellation “ghost flight plan”. E.g. in this document, chapter 6.1.1: Eurocontrol ATFCM USERS MANUAL
Quote from that document:
‘Ghost’ and Duplicate Flight Plans
‘Ghost’ is the term used to refer to the flight plans of flights which do not take place i.e. flight plans that were not cancelled by the originators.
Only one Flight Plan shall exist at any given time for the same flight.
It is absolutely essential that flight plan originators:
- Cancel a flight plan as soon as they know that the flight is not going to take place.
- Cancel an existing flight plan before filing a replacement flight plan for the same flight.
The existence of ghost or multiple flight plans is to be condemned as they will:
- Present ATC with false information.
- Impair the efficiency of the NM.
- Be responsible for the issuance of unnecessary new slots.
- Cause additional unnecessary delays to regulated flights.
- Lead to an under-utilisation of ATC capacity
There is no mention of the ghost flight plan being activated automatically at EOBT. I am interested to hear if some of you ever ran into this problem before or if you have further knowledge of these ghost flight plan procedures (it could help against possible gold plating).
Thanks!
It’s a good question. I don’t know what exactly ICAO has to say on this (if they do at all).
In any case, what you write is to some degree correct. At least as far as the practice in certain countries goes.
A few years ago, I visted the German AIS in Frankfurt and interviewed them on various points (a PuF article came out of that, you might want to search their archives of 2015).
I enquired about this specifically, and indeed, they take the stance that according to the regulations, their task of “Landeplatzüberwachung” (LPÜ) includes monitoring of filed flight plans, even if not activated (I guess the rationale is that might you have crashed on departure, before being able to send the departure message). So, while that doesn’t mean they really activate the flightplan automatically, it does mean that if a VFR flightplan (with departure in Germany) is filed, and they haven’t heard back from the pilot (either a cancellation, or a departure message) within so and so many minutes after the EOBT, then they WILL start “investigating”. I don’t know how far this investigation will go in practice.
So, always DO cancel your flightplan if you did cancel the flight. Don’t assume that because you never activated it, you can just let it “lapse”…
Common sense really, but some people don’t consider this.
Again, the practice might be different in other countries.
I regularly depart an unmanned airfield, sometimes heading straight into the clouds over open water IFR, then pick up ATC and have my flight plan activated.
I just phoned Danish ATS about this, and they told me that if I drop into the sea before making conctact with ATC no-one would start looking for me. They did not express strong feelings about people not cancelling, but of course you should always cancel for all the good reasons mentioned above. Of course I should rather just call them and activate the flight plan just before departure, that is possible.
Obviously it should make a difference whether the indicated departure is from an airport with ATC or AFIS, or from an aerodrome without AFTM. In the first case, I guess the controller/operator will just delete the flight plan at some time after its expiration/ slot.
In the UK, if you don’t depart, the FP will never be opened i.e. the DEP message will never be sent. This is for all V, and ZYI flight plans. All of these depend on somebody generating the DEP message.
I don’t know how long after the filed EOBT the FP gets binned, if no DEP message is seen.
Towered departures will do the DEP message. Untowered, you call up FIS (e.g. London Info). Or you can generate a DEP with the Autorouter telegram interface, I believe.
In the US, a flight plan that is not activated (VFR) or an IFR flightplan that the pilot does not receive a clearance, will be dropped from the systems at EDT (EOBT) + 2 hours. In Canada, the VFR flight plan is automatically activated at the EDT and there is both a departure and destination search triggered if the flight is not heard from.
At least in the Netherlands, the A/G service at an uncontrolled airfield will open your flight plan if they know you’ve got a flight plan in the system (which is for Z flights, or V flights terminating at a controller airport, or international flights). If you do a VFR flight from an uncontrolled to another uncontrolled field but still have a flight plan in the system, just let the A/G operator know. A/G will call the FIO to open the plan.
At my first radio call with A/G, I simply ask them to “open my flight plan upon departure”. Typically a minute or so after T/O I get a confirmation that the plan has been opened, and then I change frequencies to enroute. But most often pilots are not even aware that A/G opens their plan with a phone call to the FIO.
Thanks for all the answers!
It seems that clearly it shouldn’t happen that at an international airport the flight plan simpliy activates itself.
The whole “request to activate flight plan” wouldn’t be a thing either.
It seems that this is nationally different and not standardized by ICAO (can’t really believe that), respectively not harmonized within Europe. I was hoping for some sort of regulation that clearly states what happens to the flight plan when a flight doesn’t depart.
Independent of whether flight plans get “auto-activated” (Canada, apparently) or not, please cancel IFR flight plans that you don’t use (in the Eurocontrol region), this frees enroute capacity for others and allows them better slots (CTOTs). It is just the nice, communal, cooperative, thing to do.
SERA.4001-4020 deals with flight plans,but I didn’t find what happens to non-activated flightplan. The local estonian rules say that it expires 30 minutes after original filed departure time.
IIRC, on an IFR FP you are allowed to depart up to EOBT plus 30 mins (or EOBT minus 15 mins) unless you are on a CTOT and then the latitude is something like zero. I am sure somebody knows this…
So dropping an IFR FP (I V Y) at EOBT + 30 mins would make sense, although it would be rather aggressive. I don’t think it really happens. Or if it does happen, retrieving the FP is easy.
I am pretty sure that most countries don’t drop V FPs after 30 mins.
