National CAA policies around Europe on busting pilots who bust controlled airspace (and danger areas)

The flippant answer is: that’s the way it is.

The more complicated answer (which I am sure you know anyway) is:

• Approach may not give you a service at all. This is true for a lot of UK CAS. I don’t know about Edinburgh but e.g. Gatwick is very unlikely to want to talk to nearby traffic which is not after a transit.

• Talking to them doesn’t give you the right to enter their CAS. In the UK you need an explicit clearance, on an agreed track, etc. For example you can ask for and get a transit; usually this will be via the runway overhead. What you can’t do is get a clearance for a “walkabout” which wobbles 1-2nm into their CAS, all the way round

• Talking to them nowadays gives you no protection from getting busted if you bust their CAS. In years past, it would have merely resulted in a warning on the radio (unless you sailed right across and shut the airport down) but this all finished with the “new hit-them CAA approach”. So, the incentive to talk to the CAS owner is close to zero unless you want a transit. If you don’t want a transit, the incentives all point to non-txp or Mode A, and of course non-radio othewise you are identified anyway.

In France this works differently; you talk to them and you can fly along your declared route, CAS or no CAS, and if you wander right/left a bit they usually don’t care. But that’s France…

That’s an excellent outcome, Maoraigh.

Just as well, since travelling to one of the Gasco sessions from where you are would have been a long journey.

I think I am working out how this system is being run. Gasco can process about 20-25/month so while they have the capacity to do most/all CAS infringers in the low activity months, they cannot keep up as the summer arrives. This is obvious from the released stats. And with the dodgy-question online infringement exam route being apparently largely abandoned, the CAA man’s only option is to pack out the Gasco sessions and then send out warning letters to the remainder. There is a small residue of the serious ones, or repeat infringers who did Gasco already, and – if CAP1404 is to be believed literally – these get license-suspended or prosecuted. Maybe the CAA will restart the exam? Also the repeat infringer numbers will eventually rise to become a big % of the totals, so more license suspensions. We won’t know until we have data for all of 2019, and the 2019 Gasco accounts which will probably turn up c. 2021.

This is to some extent informed speculation, because the CAA has refused to release data such that one could see which route a particular month’s infringers get sent to.

Here is June infringements data

Interesting. A drop in June. Are people flying less (most unlikely) or are they reading EuroGA, or some of the other places from where this discussion gets deleted? Or has the reporting system been reduced in efficiency (most unlikely, after years of “improvement”)? Or was there a backlog in the reporting pipeline?

TMA busts are up… this is the easiest airspace to bust, and if you are Mode S then you are toast.

On the plus side, the ratio of warning letters to “Gasco sentences” has improved from May to June. 19/18 from 7/23. However, the numbers published are only those emanating from the “ICG” and this data is incomplete due to this:

MORs are read by the ICG when one or more of the following exist:
Loss of separation
Safety intervention measures implemented including, for example, avoiding action, radar vectors, cessation of departures, holding
Repeat infringement by registration/callsign
Repeat infringement by pilot-in-command

so basically the data is next to useless. What you are seeing is selective publication of what they consider “more serious” cases. I know for a fact that nipping the corner of the LTMA can send you straight to Gasco, so no need for ICG involvement to get to Gasco (and then get a license suspended on the next time).

What a weird way to publish stats. They make sure nobody can work out anything useful, e.g. how many get sent to Gasco, while still showing how many people do the more serious busts. For example the CAA stats might show that for a given month say 15 got Gasco when the actual number is 25 – this is because only 15 cases were dealt with by the ICG, while the other 10 were judged by, presumably, the one guy running the whole show. You don’t need a PhD to work out that this two-tier system enables a “freelance” operator in the CAA to run a “hard crackdown” policy; his only restriction is that he can operate it only on cases which don’t qualify for the ICG i.e. first time infringers, ones which didn’t produce a loss of separation, etc.

if we were to re-write CAP1404 to reflect a fair and effective process, how would it look?

Warning letters for minor stuff, and a graduated system above that, with e.g. fixed penalty tickets.

An acknowledgement of the fact that the radar environment we fly in is comparable to having a speed camera every few seconds, and getting a ticket 0.1mph over the limit. The entire driving population would be banned for 6 months (that’s the UK rule) in a matter of days.

I wonder how the TMZ busts were identified? (On primary Radar presumably)

This TMZ goes down to SFC

so, yes, any primary contact will do. They have to trace the pilot however, which may not be easy, or possible. Unless the pilot speaks on the radio and flies through the TMZ not knowing it is there, or with Mode A only set (as many do). Even if talking to ATC all along, entering the TMZ with no txp, or with Mode A set, will be an instant “TMZ infringement”.

I can’t help thinking that Graham’s suggestion that the top twenty “most worse” offenders are selected for the monthly course, since for economic reasons a minimum number must be needed to make the courses viable. A hard rule based system on who gets what penal action for what type of infringement could conceivably result in insufficient numbers to fill a course and a need to subsequently cancel pre booked courses, with all the follow on inconvenient consequences that would entail for the organisers and attenders.

Of course this is how they are working it. In the winter, not so much of a problem, because Gasco can process the majority of CAS busts, but if you look at the current numbers above, they have to do what is done with exam passes everywhere (adjust the pass mark to get a satisfactory distribution). It’s a bit of a juggling game because each pilot sent to Gasco is given 90 days to choose a location. The CAA can guess most of the time which location will be chosen because they are so far apart