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

Fuji Abound,

I fear you may have become a stuck record or a broken CD…

Going round and round in circles probing for detail across the past few months, but left with many, many questions unanswered.

Unfortunately I doubt you’ll find the answers to your questions here. :-(

So, can you do better?

Well, if I had the answers to his questions then I would most probably have posted them here.

This constant comparison with speeding fines is really really silly, and the modelling of the current approach to infringements on traffic enforcement is the root of all this nonsense.

Speeding is in the vast majority deliberate. Infringements are in the vast majority accidental.

There are proven approaches to reduce errors, increasing penalties and non-specific education are not very high on that list.

Unfortunately, the policy makers and the halo of people around them can’t get that into their heads, or don’t want to, and there is nobody who can hold them to account, unless somebody is willing to spend a lot of time and risk it in the courts.

Peter wrote:

If they suspend your license, they are happy, because you will never fly again, so their punishment objective has been achieved.

Are the CAA decisions without appeal to an administrative court, then?

Peter wrote:

I wonder if in other countries an infringer has an opportunity to present his side of the story and any mitigating circumstances

In Norway you have to. In fact not reporting stuff like this has a possible punishment limit for up to two years in prison. But then, anything you do report, cannot in any circumstance be used against you in a court of law. The reporting is online, secure, and goes straight to LT and/or the accident investigation bureau (not police or anything). I have reported two times. Once when my engine quit in a Pawnee some years back, and this summer when my son and I managed to scramble a full SAR mission (police, fire, rescue team) due to some “oddness” in the FP system, or “strangeness” of how it worked, maybe a mix, not sure. I have never infringed as far as I know, but that is a typical thing you have to report, and really should for your own sake, at least if it is a “bad” one. An infringement is “visible” to ATC, and they will report stuff like this as routine (I think they do at least, since they got some statistics of it, and it’s the law).

I have never heard about anyone being fined or punished for not reporting, nor anyone being fined or punished for infringing. I guess the threshold is rather high before they start come after you legally, and giving you a hint on phone/mail is real easy as well. Anyway, this thread is one of the stranger things I have read in aviation, and new strangeness keep coming all the time A real popcorn thread. I wonder if Timothy & co have any clue at all how insanely odd this all looks to us non UK pilots (not trying to speak for everyone, but still). I wonder, I really do.

Me & co.? Who is in my co.?

James_Chan wrote:

I fear you may have become a stuck record or a broken CD…

Going round and round in circles probing for detail across the past few months, but left with many, many questions unanswered.

Unfortunately I doubt you’ll find the answers to your questions here. :-(

You are being proven to be correct.

However, I would only add that the more the shortcomings of this process are examined, and the more answers are not forthcoming (and not necessarily through this forum, but all the other ways in which it could be promulgated) the more it appears there is intransigence, unwillingness to engage, and an inability to answer legitimate questions all of which is a very dangerous position in which to place yourself. However, justified the current process maybe, this will result in questions at the highest level and eventually I am in no doubt a complete review of the cirrent process.

I have no doubt as well any process that is so out of line with the whole of the rest of EASA will increasingly come under very close scrutiny.

Peter wrote:

The CAA has privileges under the ANO (which in turn is under the UK Civil Aviation Act) to impose criminal penalties, without going to a court.

There may be a process in the civil court system for compensation but I have never heard of this. I would expect somebody who feels their license was wrongly suspended or removed (and who has a lot of money and time) having a go.

Otherwise, it has been reported that you can always get your case heard in the criminal court system by not responding to any comms from the CAA, but I am not sure, because as I say above once they have removed your license they may easily not bother to take it further.

There must be an appeal to the administrative appeal system.