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

While agreeing with @Silvaire’s comments about how investigating and reporting something so mundane is bizarre, and with @Peter’s comments about how there are no learning points worth reporting (“pay attention to where you are and what’s around you”), all I’d add to this is that if you want to practice map/stopwatch/compass navigation then that’s a really poor choice of location for it.

EGLM & EGTN

Silvaire wrote:

In most cases the enforcement action would be a short phone call, and in a few of the most blatant it would be a face to face meeting to make sure the guy isn’t past it or whatever

And that’s how it should be. The current practise in the UK is costly and pointless – the person who made this very minor bust should have got no more than a phone conversation with the ATSU unit concerned.

Andreas IOM

all I’d add to this is that if you want to practice map/stopwatch/compass navigation then that’s a really poor choice of location for it.

I have stopped the mentoring (of pre-PPL pilots) which I used to do, because the only way one can do this sort of thing is by having one’s eyes glued to the GPS and talking very little with the passenger. My last bust, thankfully > 2 years now so outside the “automatic license removal” time period, was done when flying with a (PPL, retired) passenger, while having my eyes glued to the GPS and talking with the passenger for a few minutes…

Or do it way out over the sea, which is bad risk management.

ATO/DTO FIs are routinely turning off transponders now.

What I find astonishing is that, apparently, somebody wrote that “critique” while keeping a straight face, and felt it was suitable for publication as a serious article These people live in some alternate universe. I am halfway through this so maybe I will have a fuller appreciation of these angles in due course.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Silvaire wrote:

The extent of the report and investigation in relation to the barely visible airspace infraction is Pythonesque nuttiness.

Agree, but then Monty Python was a UK product

LSZK, Switzerland

Peter wrote:

What I find astonishing is that, apparently, somebody wrote that “critique” while keeping a straight face, and felt it was suitable for publication as a serious article These people live in some alternate universe.

It has to be this. It seems to be an issue that arises where you have little empire builders with a narrow idea on what is occurring and no real world experience in what the actual problem is.

It’s a shame because the pilot thought they were doing a good practice and learning exercise using DR. However with the risk of punishment of infringement you’re far better off gluing yourself to the GPS. Which is the sad state of a position created by this CAA nonsense.

Peter wrote:

The word is they are asking infringers to supply their SD log. I saw one of the letters they sent to somebody.

I can’t understand why anyone would willingly give them their data.

Redhill, United Kingdom

If the data shows you weren’t infringing, I understand why. Personally I wouldn’t give them more data than they needed (log excerpt from -10 to +10 NM from the alleged infringement) because I seem to remember that in that Dutch guy who’s trying to make a legal action out of it, they have been known to go for “fishing expeditions” in the data that’s irrelevant to the alleged infringement in question.

Andreas IOM

Haven’t they got better things to do?🤔

France

I can’t understand why anyone would willingly give them their data.

As was posted here before (but the thread is now too long for anyone to read), you first get a letter from NATS, which clearly states this is a safety data collection exercise. Then a few days later you get a very similar one from the CAA. And together with the fact that most GA pilots are sh*t scared of the CAA, and they don’t yet know of the new policy (because UK social media is dominated by NATS/ATC/CAA people who beat you up, and put pressure on the admins to suppress the discussion), so they respond.

It is not a legal requirement to respond to these two letters and there is anecdotal evidence that where people did not respond they didn’t get busted, but it will obviously make the CAA guy pretty angry. And this is not a “legal” procedure; the suspension of a license is a purely admin procedure with no right of defence or even any right of a hearing. It is classed as “provisional” which cleverly removes any appeals route.

A few weeks after you send in your response to the CAA one, you get the “sentence” from the guy running the scheme. And if you do another one within 2 years (measured from the date of the “sentence” to the date of the next bust) then you go up a step, per CAP1404. If you got sent down to gasco (many 1st timers get gasco; most of the room I was in were 1st timers) then the next step is a suspension, and it will be permanent unless you co-operate.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

alioth wrote:

the person who made this very minor bust should have got no more than a phone conversation with the ATSU unit concerned.

The toll for an – extremely minor – granite space bust in the mountains is typically death. And yes: There are airfields where the margin of error between the runway and the adjacent granite space is just 1NM (or even less).

The only reason why airspace busts happen is that we pilots do not take airspaces as seriously as we should.

Last Edited by Malibuflyer at 10 Aug 08:59
Germany
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