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

To me it just looks like cyber bullying.

Anyway, onto some specific questions that people have asked me

1. Another attempt will be made to make January to May totals better reflect the reality of the (majority of) reports that were NFA’d, but the data may not exist, as it was no-one’s job to count them; it now is, hence the better data recently.
2. The transition altitude project was delayed because it interferes with several other airspace initiatives, already way on the way, which were predicated on the existing TA system.
3. Foreign pilots are dealt with in a number of different ways, depending on their exact circumstances. If it is literally a visiting pilot from another country, then his home CAA will be informed of the infringement and will be left to deal with it in whatever way they see fit. If the pilot is a UK based operating on a foreign licence, the CA will ask the permission of the licensing authority to follow its normal UK process. This is usually granted. If the pilot has a “piggyback“ license then the CAA can take direct action with respect to the underlying licence.
4. AOC pilots are dealt with in the same way as private pilots, and, additionally their employers are obliged to consider any action that needs to be taken to reduce the risk of any recurrence.
5. Military pilots are dealt with by the MAA, and outside the authority of the CAA (I guess the clue is in the name.)
6. The RPS is recognised as a problem and is being looked at.

Xtophe wrote:

What would be your policy to deal with infrigers?
And I’m not talking about the (long term) policy to reduce systemic reasons (airspace design, FIS, …)
I’m talking about if you were given an opportunity to rewrite CAP1404 and/or seat on the ICG.

Personally, not much different to how it is now: the option of a letter, a training course for more serious infringements, or prosecution in the case of egregious or multiple offenders.

The difference I would add: give ATCOs discretion. It should be allowable for a minor infringement go without an MOR at the controllers discretion (for example, in cases where someone went 0.1nm inside fo 17 seconds, or just touched the base briefly, or perhaps contacted ATC and confessed). CAIT should still record it for statistical purposes (so during a periodic review, problem parts of airspace design can be identified) but no comeback on an ATCO for not reporting it formally.
Carriage of Mode C or S (and importantly – not subsequently turning off the transponder) would result in a “get out of jail free” card for all minor infractions to encourage the constant use and carriage of a transponder (for the pilot no consequences worse than filling in a form about how they considered they ended up infringing, so that information can be obtained on the causes of minor infringements).

alioth wrote:

Carriage of Mode C or S (and importantly – not subsequently turning off the transponder) would result in a “get out of jail free” card for all minor infractions to encourage the constant use and carriage of a transponder (for the pilot no consequences worse than filling in a form about how they considered they ended up infringing, so that information can be obtained on the causes of minor infringements).

Good point. We could also consider such a “get out of jail free” card if the FMC was used.

Timothy wrote:

To me it just looks like cyber bullying.

Could you elaborate on what exactly has been done that you consider bullying? From what I can see cyber bullying seems to be repeatedly messaging an individual with intimidating or threatening messages.

Has this person been inundated by threatening messages from this forum? It seems to me that he hasn’t, and was only made aware of his name being mentioned by someone else.

Noe, that seems very positive. Could you elaborate about the sky demon part?

@Timothy – thanks for the update, very interesting. I’d be interested to know who said “Military pilots are dealt with by the MAA” because that isn’t true, as the Regulator the MAA is independent of the operating command chain (for good reason) and has no powers over operating personnel.

Rather than a reactive measure after something has happened, I think it would be good if people could elect to take some kind of certified Infringement Avoidance training and that would buy some kind of ‘credit’ depending on the scenario. I would rather be training people before an event, whether that would reach the hard core I don’t know.

Timothy wrote:

So now the plan is to get him fired? While saying that he lacks intelligence, objectivity and critical reasoning skills?

Get real. No-one’s said that. I’ve made a general comment on how I think organisations like that get things wrong when appointing personnel and how it shows, as a counter to someone else saying that the written process shows a lack of experience. I said it showed plenty of experience, but lacked some other things – linking it back to personnel-related factors.

No-one has said anything about getting anyone fired.

People in his sort of position need to be very careful with how they engage with the public, if at all. Posting on forums (not this one), firing out emails to particular members of the public and inviting them in for little chats as a sort of one-man PR effort is a pretty strange way to go about things, as is getting one’s knickers in a twist about what’s written on the internet – something almost no-one can control. Rule one is that you generally say nothing at all to anyone unless you’re acting as an official spokesperson, and what is said by official spokespeople is usually tightly controlled by the organisation itself. I would not dream of commenting publicly on the actions of my employer, nor on my own actions as an employee of theirs.

Off_Field wrote:

Could you elaborate about the sky demon part?

They explained that the reason skydemon switched to an EGLC chart (less readable than normal SD map, especially since North up only, and I fly track up) is that I must have put EGLC as a waypoint (I did). It will not swich automatically if you don’t (for the, the automatic switch is often useful, but only for the final destination)

I think it would be good if people could elect to take some kind of certified Infringement Avoidance training

Yes, members of the AIWG have repeatedly asked that people should be allowed to attend the GASCo course voluntarily (many want to) and don’t understand why that is not possible.

Peter wrote:

countless

In a thread where transparency and (lack of) useful statistics have been a important subject, that’s suitably vague.