Ibra wrote:
I recall it was to deter Green Peace France from landing helis on the roofs?
I’m positive that landing helis on the roofs of nuclear power plants (or any building without the express approval of the owner, safety analysis etc.) is already illegal so how does a P/R area help?
Airborne_Again wrote:
I’m positive that landing helis on the roofs of nuclear power plants (or any building without the express approval of the owner, safety analysis etc.) is already illegal
Yes it’s illegal but without P area it’s no different than landing in a nighbour crop field without his permission? let’s say 100E fine, 50E damage and 20E landing fee a l’aimable, with P/ZIT area flying through could go +15kE fine and possibly in your criminal records if it’s on bad intentions…
But they go easy on innocent pilots (someone I know posted on his FB that he flew LPV in Calais when he got caught in low clouds VFR without talking to Lille ATC, cutting through ZIT/P area), just 3h visit to the police station to see petit baton and he went on his way to Perigord after
There was a short interview in Info-pilote many years ago of the first pilot to fly in one of the nuclear ZIT. The police (or gendarmes) arrested him after landing and he spent the night in a cell, but apparently it was obvious they only did this because they really didn’t have a clue what to do with him. I’m sure he wasn’t fined because the FFA is militant on anything like this, but I don’t remember if there was any other action taken against him. I don’t know how often it happens, but there must be a procedure in place by now.
There is and it’s very unpleasant. You get treated like a major criminal for several hours.
There are regular reports in the REX.
I’m having a bit of trouble with the idea of an RNP (or any other) approach that passes through a prohibited area…
Not an issue if you are on ATC clearance following a published IFR route that go through (LFP25 on Toussus ILS25, LFP26 on Calais RNP24), the ones near Cherbourg & Brest where you have to be really careful when going around !
OK in France but in UK Class G you will get busted by the CAA if you fly an IAP through an RA/DA in Class G – unless the accompanying text says it is OK if under an ATC clearance. IIRC all French RAs say it is OK to penetrate them if cleared on an IAP (Cherbourg being the nearest one here).
Back to the topic, there is precedent outside the UK for this sort of thing. It happened to me in Italy years ago, flying to Padova from (then non EU) Croatia. They claimed to not have received the notifications. Then there are numerous reports of Corfu denying a landing clearance to inbounds, where either the pilot did not do the PPR or the airport official lost it. And I know of a case in Greece where an aircraft departed some island (not a port of entry) for, IIRC, Romania, and ATC went berserk telling it to come back, but the pilot ignored it and AFAIK nothing happened. Interestingly these are all customs/immigration related cases.
I am not sure the UK police acted unlawfully in this case. I just don’t know. It is certainly dangerous. Does anyone else know of similar cases?
The usual 27 ILS vectoring at Guernsey passes through a restricted area (Sark).
They give you vectors like it’s not there, but I always get them to confirm cleared to enter the restricted area. “For the benefit of the tape”, as they used to say in British police procedural dramas.
Apart from the pilot how didn’t do his homework, why can’t you just land on an international airport, refuel and go again, without entering the country? What is the problem of UK’s border force? It really doesn’t make any sense to me that someone is forced to stay as soon as he/she lands. Sounds like rubbish or unlawful to me.
Anyway, very interesting story!
The UK doesn’t really have the concept of a “port of entry” or an “international airport”.
With the GAR system, almost every airport which is above the level of farm strips, is a port of entry. And a lot of farm strips are too, albeit with a 24hr PN on the GAR.
It is a great system (with the exception of the stupid 12hr PN for flights to the Channel Islands, Ireland (N and S) and the Isle of Man) which UK pilots ritually hate (without realising the rest of Europe is much more restrictive, because only specific airports have immigration and/or customs).
So it is ambiguous. At one extreme one could argue that without a GAR no foreign inbound can land (short of a mayday). But for the police to instruct a radio operator (who has no authority over airborne traffic, except to pass a message “on behalf of…”) to tell the pilot he cannot land is exploring a new territory.
