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

Because I can’t find the article…

Wouldn’t that be “Battle of Britain”

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Capitaine wrote:

Are we talking about this (the October issue of Pilot)

We’re talking of the November issue of Pilot, pages 34-38. (But the November issue might have appeared already in October.)

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Thank you everyone

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

Some other UK publications (naming no names), while not exactly sycophantic towards the regulator and the system in general, are careful to ensure that they are seen in a positive light.

That’s a massive understatement but easy to understand, given the domination of Flyer by NATS/etc staff. Actually it is exactly the same on some FB GA sites, except there, whenever one of them hits you on the head with a pickaxe, you can just block them

Social media has many weird and funny aspects, with one of the most notable ones being how it draws out the most aggressive (or just incredibly narrow minded) people out of a population which is known to be mostly really reasonable in real life.

All the “industry” positions I have seen on the topic of infringements are simply self justified statements like

  • all infringements are serious
  • all traffic entering the 5000ft/5nm (these figures vary; just seen yet another set today with km used) cylinder is a safety hazard
  • all traffic entering CAS could do absolutely anything and the ATCO is not allowed to make any assumptions no matter how obvious it is

and there any possible debate ends. The system is set up that way, so the system is set up that way, so the system is that way.

I was met up personally by a senior NATS guy last year (he took the trouble to drive to one of our meet-ups apparently specially for this purpose, to get hold of me) and I asked him (paraphrasing; I didn’t record the conversation) “why can’t ATC just accept that a certain level of infringements will always occur, and deal with it, like every other country is doing” and his reply was (again paraphrasing) “how else are we [NATS/CAA] going to show that we are doing something about it”. @AF was sitting next to me; maybe his recollection is better. I just could not believe that this could be said with a straight face. The guy basically admitted the policy cannot be logically supported, so didn’t bother doing so, but they need to show that the laid-down process is being followed.

But this is how the forum discussion runs. The terms of reference are absolute, and defined in terms of themselves. It’s like proving Fermat’s Last Theorem in terms of Fermat’s Last theorem. We got the same here on EuroGA, as various NATS/CAA/ATC people joined up and tried the same line. I think they eventually gave up. That’s one of many good things about EuroGA: you just can’t bullsh*it people here because lots of people will see straight through it.

Anyway, the September numbers are up in the usual place and look great for the Gasco “charity” business

CTA busts are way up; presumably this is places like the London Area airports, and (mainly) Solent.

ATZ busts are also way up again. I hear there is an initiative going through the CAA to allow non-ATC staff (A/G Radio and FISO) to have “official visibility” of ADS-B data (rather than the non official visibility of FR24 on a nonexistent laptop, as is currently the custom ) ostensibly for the purpose of warning them they are about to bust the ATZ. Of course the staff will be obliged to MOR any ATZ infringement, which can later be verified with radar data, given the ADS-B transmitted callsign. The problem is that most people who are “flying past” are not calling up the ATZ owner because most seasoned pilots know that talking to a non radar unit is pointless, so they won’t be on the frequency.

Currently there is no official monitoring of ADS-B data for detecting busts, but this initiative will formalise such monitoring, thus enabling overt MOR generation from ADS-B traffic. Quite clever really…

So ADS-B will eventually go the way transponders are going for many pilots: turned OFF. Sad really…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter I’ll write my witness of the conversation. I hope it helps.

From memory, the NATS guy wanted Peter to stop putting light on this topic, because it caused NATS a lot of trouble internally.
My memory isn’t perfect either, but I recall him saying there were people internally that agreed with Peter, but this forum made their life harder. Which made no sense to me, because if they cared, this would help convince any naysayers that there is a real issue.

The NATS guy came across to me as an individual sent by someone else to have this unpleasant talk.
It reminded me of when the mob sends the ‘nice guy’ to tell their competitor to back off. They’re talking nicely, but everyone knows they’re really not asking.
He was indeed a civil individual and tried to be reasonable, but he didn’t show any cards, and had no ability to offer any real changes, so I’m not sure what he was hoping the outcome of the conversation could possibly be, except that maybe talking to Peter in person would somehow make Peter stop bringing this up.

IIRC, here is excerpt from the conversation that was a highlight for me (not verbatim)

Peter, “If I do this one more time, you will permanently revoke my license. Why would I even bother trying to train students to fly through complicated airspace when there is the risk of that?

NATS, “yeah, that’s not something we want to see, no-one wants to see you lose your license. We all know you’re a good pilot and instructor Peter. We appreciate what you’re doing and what you’re trying to do.

Peter, “Then why is this being done. We aren’t trying to bust airspace, and I know I’m one of the better pilots out there in this regard. I am constantly educating myself, and my students about these important things, but the minute we have a small, one minute incursion at the very corner of your airspace, we have the possibility of losing our licenses. This hardly seems reasonable. We’re not reckless, I didn’t fly straight through the London airspace with no communications, yet my 1 minute incursion across the very corner of controlled airspace is treated exactly the same.

NATS guy didn’t have a meaningful reply. He tried to convince Peter that NATS wasn’t so bad, and please stop speaking so poorly of them. They’re really there to help people.

Peter brought up the ridiculous test questions and the Gasco gulag.

NATS guy replied that they had looked into the test questions, and appreciated that Peter had brought it up. Then said it is very expensive for the Gasco trainers to arrange hotels, travel, etc.

Peter reminded him that everyone pays their own hotel, and lose days of productive work, so their cost is far higher than the Gasco reps, and why does this need to be done in person in 2019, when everything they said could be done online, saving everyone thousands of pounds?

NATS guy didn’t have a good answer to that either, and again pleaded that Peter would let this whole thing go.

My personal takeaway was that the guy at NATS was helpless.
Either he was being insincere in his desire to help, or he had no power to do so, and was stuck in a position of being required to take the responsibility for it anyway.
Not sure which was true, as he did seem sincere in caring, but there was no traction behind that.
If his hands were tied, why was he the one talking with Peter in the first place?

Second takeaway was that this forum really helps, and nobody should shut up about it, because it’s a real issue, and NATS knows it.

There was much more said, it was a lengthy conversation, but that is the part that stuck out in my memory the best.

Last Edited by AF at 24 Oct 14:53

Wow. Great stuff. Many thanks.

Peter, you an instructor ? I learn more every day

LFOU, France

No; never was an instructor. The rest of AF’s account is right, I am sure. Still, a bizzare meeting, and to go to so much trouble to do it…?

I also had the [one who doesn’t like his name posted but a few k pilots have had a nasty letter from him] invite me for a meeting, just like a number of others who AFAIK all declined, except (quote) " another who holds a similar role on a different Forum."

Silly stuff… as I’ve said before, the CAA clearly wanted to keep this all quiet and just bust a lot of pilots. It was only several FOIA applications which got the policy into the open.

Paradoxically this publicity may work better in reducing busts, if only by suppression of flying activity! The % of busts can’t be reduced below the present ~1.3k a year, other than by activity suppression or, of course, transponder activity suppression. Nearly all are distractions and such, and a product of flying x hours (roughly 0.8-0.9M hrs in the UK annually) in extremely tightly monitored airspace. You would get the same if you 100% CAIT-enforced the speed limit on roads.

It is still a mystery why the UK is doing this. No other country in Europe, or probably anywhere else, sees a need to stamp out even the briefest pilot errors so vigorously.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Yeah, sorry for the discrepancy @Peter – my memory isn’t perfect :/
I do recall the story of having two in the AC during one of the busts, and somehow I thought it was a lesson…

Bitte entschueldigen Sie mich alle!

OK, yes, very true. My last one, 2019, was an ex RAF pilot, in his 90s. We flew together a fair bit in previous years but due to bad legs this was probably to be his last flight. With the help of his son (who was about 70) we got him into the TB20 one more time and he really enjoyed it. 1min 35 secs in the LTMA…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Sep 2020 MOR list is out and I got passed a copy.

Several pilots got busted for 200ft into CAS and several more by 100ft.

One got busted for 100ft into the Manchester/Liverpool low level route; he flew at 1400ft but the ceiling shown on the chart is 1300ft. I have done that route a few times, years ago, and with any wind there is a lot of turbulence when flying so low, so flying this accurately by hand is a bastard.

One ATZ bust was tracked down by the ATZ owner to a nearby airfield via an ADS-B tracking site, and his ATZ bust was confirmed by a nearby radar unit… The use of ADS-B to get someone is interesting and hardly unexpected

Lots of MORs from Solent. This is an unusual MOR, apparently filed by a GA pilot:

Concern expressed over ATC attitude against pilot of a different aircraft.
Leaving Lee on Solent airfield I was one of two passengers being flown to Kemble airfield in a Piper PA28 sitting in P2 seat (all 3 occupants on board are private pilots) when our pilot contacted Solent Radar for a basic service to be told to remain outside of controlled airspace and set Solent conspicuity code on our transponder with no service offered to us. Whilst maintaining a listening watch an aircraft that was receiving a service from Solent was given an maximum altitude not to exceed whilst on a certain section of their track. After a short time the controller at Solent aggressively informed him that he had climbed and entered controlled airspace without clearance and that it would be a reportable infringement. This kind of reaction could quite easily have an undesirable effect on the pilot that has accidentally strayed into controlled airspace whilst in two way communication with the airspace controller. This is the first time that we have encountered this reaction from an air traffic controller. On several occasions in the past when talking to air traffic controllers whilst routing in the vicinity of controlled airspace we have heard the controller advising pilots to either alter heading or altitude to avoid entering controlled airspace without clearance. No doubt the conversation will have been recorded.

Another one is from Biggin who MORd a Spitfire being towed by a tug along a taxiway…

Lots of Farnborough CAS busts.

On the topic discussed a while ago whether people are still being sent to the Gasco “course”, this was passed to me by someone who did an FOIA application:

Signed by R.E.J. Gratton, Future Airspace Team, CAA, 26th October 2020.

I am really surprised they ran the 14th March one, since by then the whole country was very much on alert and being advised to operate social distancing. It would have been a tough one for the “delegates”, especially given the PPL demographic and how vulnerable many would be to serious illness. But not turning up will have been an instant license suspension by the above named.

I see no improvement in CAA policy on this stuff… same people doing the same stuff. But given that ATC are required to MOR 100%, of course they will do that otherwise they will eventually get the boot.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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