Is there actually a regulation in the UK that someone on the ground can not tell an incoming pilot that it’s a bit foggy here at the moment?
And is there a reason why anyone holding a PPL can not see fog on final approach and go around or divert?
Or was he taking off and couldn’t see fog on the runway because it was too foggy?
Forget regulation this is just common sense. And surely the fact that your training as a PPL covers all these eventualities. The 180°, the go around, the get there itis, the request to enter CAS, asking for help etc.etc.
Or am I misreading or misunderstanding the situation here?
gallois wrote:
Is there actually a regulation in the UK that someone on the ground can not tell an incoming pilot that it’s a bit foggy here at the moment?
There is a training for INFO and RADIO which says what you can and cannot say, and the training was more in the lines of “don’t say anything to them – safety of the flight is with the pilot”. That was originally done so that the Radio (and INFO to some degree) doesn’t behave like London Control, but I think the CAA went too far with it and it appears that they are now trying to backtrack some of the damage they’ve done.
gallois wrote:
And is there a reason why anyone holding a PPL can not see fog on final approach and go around or divert?
None, other than the extra pressure re: attending CAA-mandated training.
gallois wrote:
Or am I misreading or misunderstanding the situation here?
Nope. You are reading this just right. :)
There is a training for INFO and RADIO which says what you can and cannot say, and the training was more in the lines of “don’t say anything to them – safety of the flight is with the pilot”
AG will not say anything about weather (ceiling, visibility, clouds), they only provide wind and QNH
They stop talking on the radio when you try to land between thunderstorms in ATZ and don’t allow or prohibit landing in fog. Same when you ask for weather on long finale in IMC (own instrument landing using GPS), no point asking for ceiling or visibility, they won’t reply !
I think only AFIS are allowed to provide visibility, ceiling, fog, and thunderstorms. They can also close the runway if the surface is unsafe (flooded for example)
It’s sad that pilot was pushing his flight but I doubt AG telling him about fog make any difference?
AG will not say anything about weather (ceiling, visibility, clouds), they only provide wind and QNH
That is nonsense. I often ask for something like that and I get a reply like “unofficially, it is XYZ”.
They can also close the runway if the surface is unsafe (flooded for example)
Nonsense too. Anybody on the radio can close the airport, acting on behalf of the landowner.
That said, there are “little hitlers” on the radio, in the A/G sphere, who positively enjoy being difficult. There used to be one in the long-gone Panshanger who positively enjoyed instructing arrivals to do an overhead join with a RH circuit and probably reached for his beer while the radio went silent while the poor bastard was trying to draw a sketch…
But in 24 years of flying I have never had a reply like “can’t tell you XYZ”.
I doubt AG telling him about fog make any difference?
Probably true but you never know. If he was meeting an FI, or worse still a CAA salaried examiner, to avoid getting my license chopped, then p1ssing off the said person because you “don’t like the wx” is not going to help your cause. If the meet was with a CAA guy then the pilot would have been terrified, especially given previous events (probably a bust; the UK runs a 0% forgive and 100% MOR policy) which led to the remedial training. IF he had been told about fog then he would have felt better about diverting, also because anything told by an airfield sounds “official”.
But in 24 years of flying I have never had a reply like “can’t tell you XYZ”.
They don’t reply when you ask about ceiling, heavy showers, visibility (e.g. Stapleford, NorthWeald…)
Ibra wrote:
They don’t reply when you ask about ceiling, heavy showers, visibility (e.g. Stapleford, NorthWeald…)
Well… they are not supposed to, especially if they don’t have the tools to measure it. And you’re VFR, so you should be able to see this yourself. But I’m pretty sure if you ask whether it’s raining cats and dogs, you’ll get reply.
Rami1988 wrote:
The pilot had just 1h in past month, 7 in past 3 months, 400 total over a span of 45 years. It’s not safe to go flying far from your home airfield with such little currency, no IR in the south of the UK, and no guidance from an instructor.
Many active leisure pilots that I know (including myself) fly only 25-40 hours per year – this amount to being able to plan ~1-2 days of flying per month and occasionally cancelling due to weather. So if 1h in past month and 7 in past 3 months wasn’t enough currency to go somewhere then probably all of those would never be able to fly at all – especially if the weather is like it has been this year. But obviously if you haven’t flown in the last couple of months you need to allocate more time to mentally prepare for the flight and apply slightly stricter planning minima.
Rami1988 wrote:
If a 40NM flight ended up in a disaster, imagine something longer
You somehow assume that longer is worse. There may be factors to the opposite – during a short flight you don’t have sufficient time to mentally prepare for the approach and landing. I don’t have any data that can prove or disprove it by I would expect that for 50nm and 200nm flights there is very little difference in probability of an accident caused by a pilot error. Below 50nm if might be higher due to things happening fast and above 200nm because of tiredness and loss of concentration.
Rami1988 wrote:
Personally, i hardly did any flying on my own accord without the guidance of the flying club/instructor prior to obtaining my IRR. Even then, it was to locations very close to EGKA (think Lydd) and i was very paranoid about the weather seeing how it always changed so quickly. In the UK at least, i think its pretty dangerous to have cross country flights with the basic theory knowledge & training of a PPL.
Sorry, but this is not how it’s supposed to be. If you complete your PPL, you are supposed to be able to conduct VFR flight operations alone, if you are not ready to do so and feel unsafe flying without an instructor, then something is seriously wrong. Handling weather situations like this should have been part of your training and consequently, knowing what to do if you encounter bad weather.
Thomas_R wrote:
“When the pilot requested the airfield details, the radio operators at Earls Colne did not
inform him that the airfield was in fog. They had formed a collective view that in providing an
AGCS, the privileges of the ROCC did not permit them to pass meteorological information
to an aircraft in flight unless it had first been relayed to them from another aircraft."
This is totally unacceptable. It’s all very nice that post accident the CAA now takes action to tell those folks that warning a pilot of bad conditions is “allowed”, imho it’s their DUTY to prevent accidents this way. Not doing so out of CYA considerations is simply unbelievably selfish. I wonder how these people can live with themselves now knowing that they contributed to a fatal crash.
Peter wrote:
A huge factor for sure. UK pilots are totally scared of the CAA, especially nowadays.
By the looks of it not only pilots but also radio operators.
Peter wrote:
The other odd thing is why such a short flight. It would have been much quicker to drive (I never fly if I can drive in less time) but presumably the CAA examiner (or was he meeting just some normal FI?) was not going to come to Old Buckenham.
From the report:
The pilot was flying to Earls Colne to conduct a training package that had been directed by
the CAA. He was required to complete the training by 27 August 2023. On 26 July 2023 he arranged with the training provider to undertake the flying element of the package on 21 August 2023 at Earls Colne. In preparation for that event, he flew to Earls Colne on 17 August to meet his instructor and discuss the requirements.
So apparently there was a flying element of whatever training package the pilot was supposed to fulfill. Does not look like one of those airspace infringement courses to me, but some other training. Unfortunately the report does not indicate what the mandated training was and why it was imposed.
What really strikes home here is that there obviously was a kind of “climate of fear” causal to this accident:
- The pilot being highly concerned of missing his deadline
- The radio operators being more concerned whether they were breaking some imagined regulation than to provide vital information to a fellow pilot.
This is a really sorry state of affairs.
Does not look like one of those airspace infringement courses to me,
It looks like this pilot had already been through the pipeline which, officially, CAP1422, is a warning letter, then the online exam (most fail that one; it is rigged that way) and then the gasco course which nowadays is online. But you can’t really “fail” gasco unless you are not present, so probably he had that and then did something else within the 2 year period, which leads to a “provisional license suspension” (in effect permanent until you complete some CAA-directed process; the “provisional” label is used by the CAA to remove an internal appeal option). Also I know a lot of people get/got gasco on first offence; when I had mine, most of the room were first offenders which showed CAP1422 to be largely fake.
There is a CAA video on youtube where a CAA examiner is talking about these “final stage” mandated training flights he does. It’s been posted here in the busts thread. IIRC, a good % of the candidates were not even able to plan a flight.
It is also possible this pilot did a major bust (roughly 1% of MORd events are stuff like shutting down Luton for half an hour) and then the CAA will just suspend you, or even prosecute right away.
So he was under pressure allright.
I also agree a longer flight is much easier on the brain especially if your currency is poor.
Overall this appears to be a case of a very part time pilot who had a long history of “stuff happening” behind him, but we don’t actually know that. Many people have had long gaps in their flying careers.
YakovD wrote:
Many active leisure pilots that I know (including myself) fly only 25-40 hours per year – this amount to being able to plan ~1-2 days of flying per month and occasionally cancelling due to weather. So if 1h in past month and 7 in past 3 months wasn’t enough currency to go somewhere then probably all of those would never be able to fly at all – especially if the weather is like it has been this year. But obviously if you haven’t flown in the last couple of months you need to allocate more time to mentally prepare for the flight and apply slightly stricter planning minima.
Makes sense. I guess it also depends on many other factors such as existing experience, skill, decision making, etc. Someone told me you need to be doing at least two approaches a month to be at the minimum currency. I think that sounds about right. How many hours you have behind you also influences this number i guess.
YakovD wrote:
You somehow assume that longer is worse. There may be factors to the opposite – during a short flight you don’t have sufficient time to mentally prepare for the approach and landing. I don’t have any data that can prove or disprove it by I would expect that for 50nm and 200nm flights there is very little difference in probability of an accident caused by a pilot error. Below 50nm if might be higher due to things happening fast and above 200nm because of tiredness and loss of concentration.
Fair point. Likely to be less complacent in longer trips as well. I meant that the weather is likely to be more unpredictable the further away you go and the more time you spend in the air. Also turning back is harder.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Sorry, but this is not how it’s supposed to be. If you complete your PPL, you are supposed to be able to conduct VFR flight operations alone, if you are not ready to do so and feel unsafe flying without an instructor, then something is seriously wrong. Handling weather situations like this should have been part of your training and consequently, knowing what to do if you encounter bad weather.
A PPL is the minimum you require to legally conduct VFR operations. It includes just 10 hours solo in controlled conditions (i.e. your instructor tells you when to go or not). The universe has unlimited permutations of events that will test your knowledge and experience. I agree that in this case it should have been obvious (look at the picture of the destination airfield at departure time it looked bad already) – nevertheless if he had a basic IRR course he would almost certainly be alive today. Its just 15 hours out of a total of 400+ total time. Why not just do it? A tiny investment in the grand scheme of things.
I appreciate this is all not very popular thing to say on here – clearly its rubbing people the wrong way. But most of you are quite skilled, experienced, aviation enthusiasts. However – most PPLs aren’t as skilled/dedicated.
