in the absence of any NOTAM, Jean was fine to depart without any prior notice.
That’s what I said. “Getting intro trouble” wasn’t meant in terms of prosecution or conviction after the event, but as being troubled (and possibly worked up, and possibly delayed) by some jobsworth at the airport or similar.
on a recent flight from germany to the uk, i had to delay departure due to weather.
I was “bundespolizei” borderpolice checked before – they specific came to see us from the local main train station about 15min before ETOD
we decided to wait after engine run up a bit longer due to weather so I delayed FP and told the woman from the police that we will wait for about 30-45min longer (expecting her to leave as she had allready checked all our passports) but she told us, she has to stay until she sees the aircraft taking off! so this makes sence why they probably dont want to come to early, as than the waiting time is much longer.
So I agree always to file ETOD a bit on the optimisic side and than if required delay FP slightly For me better the police waits than me !! The costs in Germany was the same regadless how long they had to wait!!
I thought in Germany the airport staff was empowered to do those checks?
Another detail I posted, which I believe all above missed, is that my passport and license were checked at the handling office, at least 1hr before departure.
How am I supposed to know that this man was not empowered to do the immigration check, or advised the police that he did it? He knew I was flying to the UK, and he escorted me out of the building to the plane. I could not really think any more surely that I had been “processed”.
But I agree it is not too smart of the police to show up only 10 minutes before EOBT.
Given they had 4 days’ notice and probably 1.5hrs’ notice after I arrived at the airport, it is really weird.
I am however under the impression it is pretty common.
Never seen it before and I have landed at something over 150 airports around Europe. Like I said several times, something weird may have happened in this case but it could be they were just making a (clumsy and highly unprofessional) point that they are in charge of the airport.
As is often the case with these things, there may be some “history” e.g. pilots departing after believing they were adequately processed by the handling office, and the police getting p1ssed off about it, and doing this to make the point to the airport management in a clumsy but highly visible way. Otherwise the usual and correct way would be for them to call ATC and tell them to instruct me to taxi back to the tower. For a number of obvious and less obvious reasons, the police in this case would really hate any suggestion that they are servants of the airport. Otherwise why just walk up towards an aircraft at the runway holding point and start gesticulating at the pilot? You could call up ATC in far less time than it takes to do the walk. It had to be done to make a point, and probably not to the pilot who no reasonable person would expect to come back to that airport anytime soon after this crazy (and to anyone with more than 2 braincells, very dangerous) experience.
denopa wrote:
I thought in Germany the airport staff was empowered to do those checks?
Depends. Some are, some aren’t.
We decided to wait after engine run up a bit longer due to weather so I delayed FP and told the woman from the police that we will wait for about 30-45min longer (expecting her to leave as she had allready checked all our passports) but she told us, she has to stay until she sees the aircraft taking off! s
In practice, this also depends. This spring, I was police-checked before leaving towards Croatia here in Germany. Turned out we had a problem starting the aircraft and departure was delayed by 3 hours. Police was long gone. Anyway, even if there hadn’t been any delay… in practice, police usually doesn’t seem to be standing right next to the aircraft until you start taxying out. You could always load a bunch of other persons after police has done their check… shows how useless all this is…
ch.ess wrote:
The rules are clear:
(…) EOBT (…) You are required to wait until that time.
172driver wrote:
Lionel wrote: L’existence dans notre pays de deux forces de police, l’une à statut civil, l’autre à statut militaire (…)Exactly. Statut militaire.
My understanding of what the discussion was about was not whether they had military status or not, but whether they are a police force. Yes, they have military status. And yes, they are a police force. What I wrote in the subthread starter (post 31) was that France has two police forces. It has. One with civil status, the other with military status.
Trouble with all the immigration/customs issues is that they are usually the ones who will act first and apologize if at all later. So following procedures to the letter is the only thing which can prevent that, even though it is often really hard to do with all the different procedures in place.
In practice, you are a perfect target for all these people as they have you and your airplane on the spot and can simply prevent you from leaving unless they are satisfied. In my experience, the more you appear in a hurry or impatient, the more they will slow down. I had that happen a few years ago at a border point with Germany where one of my colleagues driving was getting unnerved which resulted in a 6 hour complete strip down of the car and ourselfs before we were literally kicked out and sent on our way. They do have time all day and know that you do not.
I try to avoid airports with this kind of customs and only try to enter or leave via H24 customs airports. But that is getting more and more difficult as most countries do away with those in the erroneous idea that they are no longer needed. Wrong as the example in France shows. Pity. Avignon used to be one of my favorite airports, looks like it is better to avoid it now as well. Or better avoid France altogether, there are friendlier places to fly to.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
before we were literally kicked out
Literally? So a German policeman kicked you with his boot in your behind? That is quite a scandal. Have you filed a report? Police violence is a serious crime in Germany.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Avignon used to be one of my favorite airports, looks like it is better to avoid it now as well. Or better avoid France altogether
Sounds like an appropriate measure and a good addition to your already exhaustive non-fly list. IIRC Germany (at least the Munich area) is also part of it.
To me this whole story boils down to something rather simple and innocent:
Peter departed earlier than filed. Police wanted to check him so they stopped him on the taxiway. He shut down the engine, they looked at his passport. He started the engine again and departed.
In the future neither Peter nor the readers here will depart early without taking some precaution. Nothing happened and we learned something.
