CAA prosecutions

[JP1]

I noticed from the CAA website that for 2006 there were a few prosecutions for infringements. Clearly the exact details are not disclosed, but under what conditions generally is a procecution sought.

I would have thought that no one would intentionally enter without clearance and given that assumption then if the below infringements were accidental, under what circumstances will the CAA prosecute.

Class A infringement Guilty plea Fine £600
Class A infringement Guilty plea Fine £500
Class D infringement Guilty plea Fine £750
Aerodrome Air Traffic Zone Infringement Guilty plea £250
Aerodrome Air Traffic Zone Infringement Guilty plea Fine £800

[Twiddle]

Probably in the same way that a not guilty plea to speeding wouldn't cut the mustard if you covered the speedo?There has to be another reason like a map misprint or being vectored under radar control.

[JP1]

...sorry

there are numerous infringements on a yearly basis, I'm sure someone could give an approximate number, a 1000? ( 3 a day)

Approximately 4 seem to have resulted in prosecution. If accidental infringement is prosecuted why isn't this number higher?

[WorkingHard]

Infringements of CA are quite obviously to be taken seriously and the pilots in charge of artcraft need to be at the very least taught the error of their ways. If it is deemed a prosecution is appropriate then so be it when all the circumstances have been taken into account. We hear so much about infringements and it is always assumed it is GA. This is just not so. The military produce quite a number and considering the few aircraft they have compared to GA it seems out of proportion. I do not have the latest figures but obtained them a couple of years ago and was very surprised. It should also be noted that the Commercial types have quite a few level busts which by some may be likened to an infringement by GA or Military. Can anyone point me in the direction of a prosecution? In other words let us keep a sense of proportion. If the full time professionals get it wrong sometimes then quite obviously the amateurs will.

[zkdli]

Hello all,
I believe that in the LTMA there were over three hundred infringements in 2006. The vast majority were by GA pilots, be they PPL, SPLs or profesionals such as flying instructors.
There were less than 10 infringements by military aircraft of the LTMA in that time. I think but can't be sure that it was actually significantly less than 10:)
The CAA only look in to prosecuting pilots if a CA939 (breach of air navigation regulations) has been filed. 9 times out of 10 when they have investigated they decide that some retraining is appropriate or a caution is issued.
When a pilot has been prosecuted there is normally an overwhelming reason for it. I know that this year a pilot flew around Heathrow for almst an hour causing enormous disruption. The pilot was recently taken to court and a substantial fine was leaved.
The controllers at LTCC generally do not file CA939 unless significant disruption has occurred or a serious loss of separation resulted from the Unauthorised penetration of CAS.:)

[IO540]

There is conflicting data on what the CAA use to decide.

A well known lawyer has often said they go after people seemingly randomly. This may be true but from the published details (nearly all being successful cases) they either rarely do it, or they bungle most of them.

The CAA themselves (and I have spoken to their head of enforcement a while ago, on a different but related subject) claim they prosecute only the most serious cases. Again, the published data either supports this, or they prosecute loads and bungle most of them...

Personally I think the latter is the case (they rarely prosecute). According to the Ontrack survey, there are several hundred serious CAS busts every year; big ones where jet transport traffic is stopped from departing / diverted / etc. I don't know how many get away but clearly only a tiny percentage get done for it.

I would guess that most of these would be equally serious, in that none will be deliberate, all will be navigation errors, and the main variable will be the degree to which the pilot contributed to the error. Speculating... not carrying charts is going to make you look a right d1ck.

Rumour has it that the CAA go especially after people with a bit of an attitude, or history of winding them up. This is exactly what the police has always done, and it makes sense since the CAA dept is made up of former police officers.

There will always be CAS busts - the PPL training procedure is too useless for today's airspace. AFAIK nobody ever has a word with the school or the instructor. This climate makes it easy for a decent lawyer to get you off the hook for most things.

[zkdli]

:)IO540
What is interesting is that I know that LTCC attempts to trace all infirngers that have not been the subject of a CA939. Most times they are successful in identifying the aircraft. They go out of their way to try to contact the flying school CFI to attempt to find out why the infringement occurred and the vast majority of times the flying school advises on action that they have taken to lessen the chance of the infringemt recurring. :)
Knowing how many replies that the unit has recieved from CFI and pilots, it seems strange that no pilots who read this thread have written of their experience, what subsequently happened or why they ended up in CAS.:)
Sort of I learnt about flying from that!

[Warped Factor]

IO540, as zkdli (that's a bit of a mouthful) says, LTCC trace the vast majority of London area infringers and will attempt to open a dialogue with them. If student pilots are involved that dialogue will include the instructors.

A selection of such feedback reports should appear on Fly on Track (http://www.flyontrack.co.uk/default.asp) in the not too distant future, always a good first stop for any questions relating to infringements.

[IO540]

They go out of their way to try to contact the flying school CFI to attempt to find out why the infringement occurred and the vast majority of times the flying school advises on action that they have taken to lessen the chance of the infringemt recurring

What does the school say? That the student was correctly taught dead reckoning? I have to admit that's about all they can say.

However, Warped Factor suggests that only a student pilot bust gives rise to a contact with the school.

it seems strange that no pilots who read this thread have written of their experience, what subsequently happened or why they ended up in CAS.

I don't think anybody wants to advertise that sort of thing :) I did once bust a French nuclear power station TRA - knew nothing about it at the time (back then, they didn't come up in the notams, and weren't shown correctly on the IGN charts), didn't hear for about 5-6 months and then got a letter from the CAA, saying the DGAC wants to know who the pilot was, etc. It was resolved OK, with a stiff letter from the CAA signed by some Captain with a 2mm wide fountain pen. So, my experience of the CAA remains entirely positive, but I would say the DGAC are complete a***holes for taking so long. They had the radar tracks (I saw them).

[London Mil]

I would hazard a guess that there were 562 recorded airspace infringements in 2006.

[zkdli]

Hello IO540!
We have a culture in aviaton of lesson learning. Part of that, you would like to think, is that when a pilot has infringed and gone through the process of re-training or what ever that happens, you would hope that they would pass on their experience. I learnt about flying is doing just that. How many pilots have learnt about no no's on their aircraft from other pilots who found out before them and passed on the tale?:)

[DX Wombat]

zkdliit seems strange that no pilots who read this thread have written of their experience, what subsequently happened or why they ended up in CAS.
I can tell you why I have never done that. A long time ago I said I would NEVER mention in this forum that I was learning to fly because I wasn't prepared to put up with all the sarcasm, criticism and general nastiness towards those who asked genuine questions which some decided were ridiculous, not worth answering sensibly, or to which they gave a sarcastic, unhelpful reply.
I am still not prepared to say what happened as there will always be those who know better than NATS - who were both helpful and supportive, my CFI and the other FIs involved from whom I also received great support and the Airfield manager at my destination airfield who described my actions as "exemplary". Suffice to say the incident didn't even appear in the CAA's publication of that month's misdemeanours.

[Joe le Taxi]

I once listened to some german guy on London Info who was right at the Dutch/UK boundary at FL105 (well inside the airways) asking for a direct Jersey through 'his' airspace, VFR. Even before London Info could reply he was well into UK awys.

London was very polite but this prat was extremely reluctant to descend out of the airways, and seemed to be of the opinion he had a god given right to fly where he pleased.

I really hoped he got the book thrown at him.

NATS get very frustrated by people who turn off their transponders or to just Mode A when they think they are getting close to airspace, and this too could evoke a less than sypathetic approach by the enforcement branch in the event of an infringement.

[tangovictor]

http://www.flyontrack.co.uk/
go to the above, then click radar replay, see how a single ga can disrupt
a whole days commercial flights.
Re prosecutions, I was told, its all about the Attitude of the offending pilot
if you know why / where you went wrong and hold your hands up, fine
start arguing that the charts wrong or it wasn't your fault, Big mistake

[Three Mile Final]

In response to the question :-

"it seems strange that no pilots who read this thread have written of their experience, what subsequently happened or why they ended up in CAS.
Sort of I learnt about flying from that!"

I suppose I could mention a hypothetical pilot, out having a bimple on a Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago, who was around near Billingshurst heading south ish at 2,500 feet in the sort of weather we have had of late, sunny periods and scattered showers, who altered course to the east, to avoid one of the showers, not wanting to go IMC and get bumped about, without realising just how close he / she (the hypothetical pilot) was to Gatwick's zone.

As said hypothetical pilot was in receipt of a FIS from Farnborough, the FIS controller (may all his lottery tickets be winners) asked our "hero" if he realised he was infringing Gatwick's zone and politely suggested that he might like to make his heading 270 degrees, before the situation became any worse, preferably fairly promptly.

Said hypothetical pilot very smartly did so, feeling exceptionally foolish and extremely chastened and vowed never to make such a damn fool mistake ever, ever, ever again. :\

And as far as we al know he / she never has (if of course the episode ever happened at all).

A license to fly is a license to learn and learn that pilot most certainly did - about that terrible pair of killers, for whom there is no excuse, inattention and distraction.

TMF

:oh:

[maxdrypower]

Well here goes simply for the sake of I learnt about flying from that .
In the recent past somewhere in the uk .I was flying to an airfield I was relatively new too. I had not approached it from the route I was taking before. I usually fly a G1000 equipped aircraft however this was an analogue aircraft of a different type . I misidentified a mway jct and headed down the wrong one . I fell into the trap of making the features fit the map and not using a gross error check which would have told me that I should have been heading east not south. As a result I ended up well inside a major airports zone at 2000. Had I continued I would have flown straight across the final approach . AS it happened I became concerned and immediately turned north away from the zone , unfortuntely I had already done the damage causing an inbound airliner to take up a hold . The airport in question got me home . This is a somewhat abbreviated version but the meat is there . On landing I went to ATC and went over what had happened and why and contacted the duty atco at the airport .We had a lengthy conversation but there was no blame , sarcasm , chastisment just an informative debrief of what had gone wrong and how it affected the airport ops. Ppaerwork for the caa was raised . I submitted a chirp report and immediately booked a flight with an instructor and went over the route with specific references to local landmarks etc etc .
I also went and visited , at their invitation the atc unit in question to see my track and what actually occured . I have yet to hear from the CAA .I was told that I had done everything correctly , by a friend in the industry.Admitted what I had done debriefed it doen some refreshment training and publicised it for others to learn from ?
Yes not happy with what happened , im not really a low hours ppl and it shoudnt have happened , but it did and I learned from it . Maybe my attitude went someway to explain the caa's reponse , who knows
Jackals have your go Im ready for you, but please only criticise if you have never made a mistake

[Gertrude the Wombat]

As said hypothetical pilot was in receipt of a FIS from Farnborough, the FIS controller (may all his lottery tickets be winners) asked our "hero" if he realised he was infringing Gatwick's zone and politely suggested that he might like to make his heading 270 degrees, before the situation became any worse, preferably fairly promptly.

Or the hypothetical pilot in receipt of RIS from Luton who, having abandoned his plans for the day and trying to find his way back home through significantly worse than forecast weather, decided to go over rather than under the next little cloud and found himself a tad too high ... the controller was quite nice about it when I phoned him later.

[Say again s l o w l y]

maxdrypower, if you get prosecuted after that then there is something wrong with the world.

As an FI who's been around for a couple of years.. then I'll just say that I wish I had met more pilots with your attitude to making a mistake. Sh*t happens and how you deal with it marks you out far more than the actual first mistake.

There will always be some egotistical a**e who'll tell you that you should have done this or that, but just ignore them. You knew you did wrong and made amends. End of story.

[maxdrypower]

SAS Thanks for that , no point trying to argue with the man when your so blatantly wrong is there?

[tangovictor]

maxdrypowder, thank you for your honesty, :D as I already mentioned, speaking to someone in authority on this very subject, the CAA are interested in saftey and education, you have shown you understand why / where you went wrong, Its the arogant types that won't admit a mistake, ( & don't we all make them ! ) that won't accept blame or be educated, that the CAA finally have to prosecute

[IO540]

I am suprised that somebody, presented with radar tapes, is going to argue with the CAA. On what grounds?

Sometimes one does wonder though. The other day I was flying N of Brize and on the handover to Shawbury was instructed to turn left urgently to avoid busting Birmingham airspace. I was flying a dead straight track on the autopilot and had two GPSs telling me I was 2nm outside it, and immediately following this instruction (which I obeyed) I got the DME from Birmingham's ILS which together with a ruler on the 1:500k chart confirmed I was exactly where I thought I was! I can only guess that either Shawbury's radar is ~ 2nm out in azimuth at the 35nm distance in question, or they incorrectly determined my track at that moment and thought I was about to bust. If this had resulted in a bust action I would have asked for more than one radar tape.

On another occassion I was flying about 3nm outside Lyneham's zone and was told I was infringing. I turned as instructed, but (as above) this conflicted with GPS+DME so I telephoned their ATC afterwards. They told me they had about 30 microlights bust their zone the day before and were telling people they were busting even when they looked like they might be.

[London Mil]

IO540, I don't know the specifics, but if your at 35nm range from Shawbury's radar, you blip size may well be quite large if various filters etc are not switched on. I would certainly expect an aircraft with reasonable radar cross-section to appear to be at least 2nm across in azimuth. Combine that with a radar map which, although accurate, still has 'line thickness', a keen, puppy controller and you may well find that he/she believes you are about to commit a mortal sin.
Can't comment on Lyneham, sounds like ATC supervisor bull**** to me.:=

[IO540]

2nm diameter blip at 35nm?? That would explain a few things.

For a start it means that a functioning GPS will be far more accurate than a radar. I recall Irv Lee doing an article for one of the UK flying rags a few years back, where they flew around somebody's CAS and got them to check the accuracy of their GPS. Seems a completely pointless exercise to me, if the radar resolution is that poor. A functioning GPS will be about 100x more accurate than a radar, around the edges of the average Class D zone and assuming the radar head in the middle of it.

I wonder how accurate the resulting radar tape would be. The one which the DGAC used to go after me showed me only a few hundred metres inside the TRA. Funnily enough I was under a squawk at the time, a sort of "FIS with radar" which has since become common in France for VFR traffic.

[London Mil]

However, the SSR return will give a far more accurate fix. :O

[Roffa]

And if it's a fully processed radar of the type we use at TC, doesn't matter how far you are from the radar, your primary (and secondary) return never changes in size.

IO540, what are your calculations for the 100 times more accurate bit? Just that our radars and their maps etc are used for quite close tolerances with regards separation and vectoring etc and so are scrutinised rather closely for accuracy.

[IO540]

I based that on the 2nm diameter blip.

Sure one can reduce the size in software to something impressive but does this yield real position accuracy? From a 2nm wide return it won't - other than by averaging many returns which one can't do (for position fixing purposes) with a moving target.

A decent IFR GPS will be accurate to well within say 10m, everywhere, virtually all the time.

I would hope the radar would be more reliable, if not more accurate, because one could continually check it by marking certain ground returns (whose location is accurately known) onto the screen and checking where they produce a blip. I wonder if this is done.

[Roffa]

There are numerous fixed points on our radar maps (VORs, NDBs, reporting points, centrelines etc) that aircraft fly over and that would soon show up any inherent innacuracies if pilots were reporting over them and the radar was displaying them a significant distance away from them. It doesn't.

Some primary radars do use known fixed ground targets for calibration/set-up checks.

In the case of the two mile wide return on an unprocessed primary, you work using the centre of the return as being the position of the aircraft, not the whole two mile wide blip.

[DX Wombat]

Don't knock Shawbury and the advice given by them. The ATCOs there are unfailingly helpful and pleasant to everyone, including those who require serveral attempts to get them to read back correctly - I've heard them often enough! They are GA friendly and more than willing to help keep you out of trouble. I would far rather take their advice that I might be about to infringe Birmingham's airspace and find myself a couple of miles further away than risk infringing it. I will ALWAYS talk to Shawbury but rarely to Birmingham, especially after my last attempt to do so, preferring to keep down below their airspace.A decent IFR GPS will be accurate to well within say 10m, everywhere, virtually all the time Which could easily have meant you were eight miles inside, instead of two miles outside, Birmingham's zone. I'll take Shawbury's advice any day.

[Say again s l o w l y]

I think the m stood for metres not miles!

I've always found Shawbury to be very helpful. No complaints from me. Brum can be good, can be bad. Seems to depend who's on (That's not just from a GA perspective, but also an airline one)

[DX Wombat]

:O Serves me right for getting annoyed about someone not willing to take the advice of those who really would be trying to help. Where would he have stood if the GPS had been having a seriously faulty day and he had ignored the advice from EGOS ending up inside Birminghham's airspace? It seems to me he wouldn't have had a leg to stand on as Shawbury would, most probably, have on tape the advice they had given.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Fortunately at my unit infringements are quite rare (mainly because most of our airspace is well above the normal operating levels of GA aircraft I suspect), however we do get them.

Our first step in the case of an infringement will always be to track down the culprit, using radar monitoring, by speaking to other agencies who might be in contact with the pilot, etc, etc.

Once we know who it is then we'll try and invite the pilot to call us to discuss the infringement. If the pilot doesn't call, then we'll submit a MOR, a CA939 (Alleged Breach of Legislation), and all relevant recordings to the CAA and let them deal with things. We'll also provide an assessment of the impact on civil operations and any safety issues which arose.

If the pilot does call, then we'll let him put his/her side of the story, whilst we'll explain how it was from our point of view. The idea here is that we share the experience and learn any lessons which can help prevent a reoccurrence.

If the pilot is receptive and we get the impression that they have genuinely taken away something which makes them realise the potential (and actual) effect of their actions, plus things which will make them better educated for future flights, then we'll still file the MOR but provide information that appropriate counselling has been given and as far as the unit is concerned, the matter can be closed. We'll also almost certainly forego the CA939 action since the alleged breach of legislation has been dealt with satisfactorily (in our minds) and a prosecution would serve no purpose other than a punishment. Please note that this would generally be for infringements which didn't directly affect safety or cause massive disruption. In those cases, the high profile of the infringement might tie our hands and the CAA will probably wish much more robust reporting and reaction (at least on their part).

If the pilot is non receptive or continues to give the impression they are oblivious to the seriousness of the issues, then our counselling is obviously not working and our only recourse is to take full reporting action and let the CAA deal with it.

At my unit, the majority of infringements are by military pilots, some foreign, but mostly UK air arms. The trainee pilots seem to be the most receptive when discussing the infringement, whilst the steely eyed trained killers seem to try and blame anyone but themselves ;)

[PPRuNe Radar]

In terms of radar accuracy I'd have to check our documentation, but for our en-route processed radar the accuracy figures are in the order of +/- 1 degree of azimuth and +/- 0.1NM range.

You can use the 1 in 60 rule to work out how far out you might be displayed on our radar from your actual position depending on your distance from the radar head. :ok:

[IO540]

Serves me right for getting annoyed about someone not willing to take the advice of those who really would be trying to help

I am curious at astonishing the leap of imagination it has taken to reach the above "conclusion" from my entirely neutral technical discussion of radar blip size / azimuth accuracy. Nobody was criticizing Shawbury, who are unfailingly polite and helpful.

1 degree means 0.5nm at 30nm, which is obviously close enough to detect a real CAS bust.

I would agree that a radar system will be more reliable than GPS (which is why I would take a radar vectored letdown over a GPS approach) but there is no doubt that GPS is far more accurate in the 99.xxx% that it is working.

With a decent moving map, either displaying the actual CAA chart (this is now possible) or used together with the printed chart, it's quite hard to bust airspace.

The only time to my knowledge I have busted UK airspace was a vertical bust, when flying, at about FL053, under a piece of FL055-base Class A and then transiting to below an adjacent piece of Class A with a 5500ft base. This type of "let's see how many pilots we can catch with this trick" airspace design seems peculiar to the UK. The QNH was significantly off 1013 and this resulted in a bust of about 500ft. I was accompanied by an ATPL instructor, who was watching a moving map of the actual CAA chart, and he didn't spot it either... it won't take long to work out where this was but it was a long time ago and the tapes will be long gone. It was in the middle of the night and no radar service was available to us.

[DX Wombat]

Sorry IO540, I have no idea how I missed the bit where you said you did as they asked. I do tend to get rather defensive when it comes to Shawbury as I fly through there reasonably frequently and they have always been very helpful to me. I am always amazed at their patience and politeness with all who use their services. I recently had a problem with my transponder and having spoken to D&D on the ground before I set off back to my home airfield,(there was a lot of Military traffic around that day and I wanted to be visible to Shawbury) I called them only to find that not only was there a problem with the transponder but the radio decided to have a tantrum too and I couldn't hear anything (I was plenty high enough at 3,100' for the Clee Hills not to be a problem). We eventually managed to make contact - they had been able to hear me all the time, and they kept an eye on me until I was safely back on the ground. As soon as I was able I rang them to thank them.

[scooter boy]

I am expecting a letter from DGAC re landing at Cannes (without a prearranged slot) during the film festival/Monaco Grand Prix restrictions.
We had filed an IFR flight plan from Perugia (Italy) to Cannes and had been handed over by controller after controller (with no mention of special procedures being in place) until after landing one of the Cannes ground crew advised us of our oversight - I thought the film festival had ended but Cannes was still awash with luvvies and the special procedures were still in place!
7000 Euros was the threatened fine!
IO540 I am pleased to hear that you were not prosecuted especially since you were under a squawk.
I'll be checking the NOTAMs more carefully in future.

SB

[IO540]

SB - let me into a little secret: very few IFR pilots ever look at notams. You check the weather, file the flight plan, and if the FP isn't refused then you are "good to go". That's how it's been done since IFR was invented and that's how most old hands still do it.

If they prosecuted everybody who filed an IFR FP, which was not refused (despite the fact that the ATC at the destination has it on their system within seconds of you getting the ACK) they would be nicking the majority of bizjet pilots.

[scooter boy]

IO540, you are probably right that "very few IFR pilots ever look at NOTAMs" - it is certainly easy to slip into the habit of expecting ATC to take care of you in CAS - and most of the time they do (bless'em!:D). Our IFR flightplan was not rejected and at no point was it suggested to us that special procedures were in place at Cannes - in fact in the most recent Loop the article concerning the "race" from Cambridge to Cannes suggested that no special procedures were in place at Cannes - oh yes they were!

Although it is no excuse I had no internet access on the morning of the flight (Stayed in a friend's farm on a hilltop in Umbria where GPRS was not possible) and NOTAMs were not offered to me by (the incredibly slow) Perugia flight planning - so we just made tracks into the airways system and Cannes lured us in.

Hopefully the CAA Captain with the 2mm wide fountain pen will be on hand to fight my corner if I need him.

SB

[Say again s l o w l y]

Sorry but if that's the case, then they are idiots Checking the NOTAMS should be as automatic as checking the weather.

I know they can be a pain to get, but at least get the departure and destination and diversion NOTAMS.

That way you aren't relying on anyone else to do your work for you. Why should a controller check whether you have a slot? It may just be a data input monkey rather than anyone qualified. How are they to know you haven't got a slot?

Sorry, but there are no real excuses on that one. Even the most junior PPL trainee should know to check NOTAMS.If their FI doesn't mention it (which of course they should) then even a cursory glance at an air law course book will tell you.

Sorry SB, but I can't see much of a defence really. As Traffic Police are so fond of saying "ignorance of the rules is no excuse, Sir"

[IO540]

I didn't suggest one should not check notams; for example an approach aid might be duff so no ILS, etc.

It's just the pre-internet culture to not check them, and great many "old" pilots still live in that age. I did my PPL in 2000 and never got any notams. But then the website only appeared c. 2003 and barely worked even then. Now it's pretty good.

[rustle]

But then the website only appeared c. 2003 and barely worked even then.

Mid August 2002. :ouch: ;)