Air Prox Dublin Airport Dec 07

[lipgo]

Its reported that an air prox occurred on 17 December ,between a Irish based foreign registered A109E and departing learjet. The A109E was cleared to cross 10/28 from north to south after the departing Learjet, but he crossed in front of him. The Learjets Capt first comment was "I want his butt"...!!

[Old Man Rotor]

It’s a sign of the times, to see this new age Lear Jet Captains perversions are now out of the closet!

[Helipolarbear]

The Dawg:ugh:...(thats the New Age Captain's nickname) wants the 109 Pilots Bo**"x on a plate, never mind his butt! Understandably so when you hear the report!::mad: Wasn't pretty by all accounts!:ugh:

[Visual Calls]

I'm not surprised this happened (if indeed it did happen as rumoured). The standard of some heli pilots is very poor, according to those close to the training of some of them. If the standard of R/T one hears from a lot of them is the general standard they operate to, I can only concur.
Some "gems" I have heard lately:
Heli's departing in the control zone with no flight plan.
Heli's looking to transit the zone VFR during hours of darkness.
Heli's looking to go IFR and then admitting they are not IFR rated.
etc etc

There are a lot of guys out there who shouldn't be allowed fly a kite, let alone a helicopter. It's no wonder helicopter accidents happen so frequently.

[4ftHover]

Visual Calls

If i was you i'd take cover !

Can you just run through the number of accidents that are RT related ??:ugh::ugh:

[nouseforaname]

Not saying I know why this happens but having flown a lot in the UK and Ireland, in helicopters and planes, ifr and vfr. Think a contributor to this is that in Ireland there is mostly very little controlled airspace, I mean you have Shannon and Cork in the south then Dublin in the north of the Rep. And by comparison to the rest of the country Dublin is a very very busy bit of airspace. Not saying that UK heli pilots are better or anything, because that would be just stupid, but I think that sudden business of airspaces sometimes catches all lines of pilots in Ireland out.

[FloaterNorthWest]

Visual Calls,

What a crass generalisation!

Not going to waste my time listing the things I have heard the numpties in their planks say and do, including the big airlines.

FNW

[porksword]

Visual Calls,


This incident definitely occured alright!! I know one of the guys involved!! He is not a happy camper. Said his life flashed before his eyes!

As for the incident, a child of 5 would look before crossing a road let alone an active runway at a busy international airport!! Poor airmanship at best!

[PUP]

Visual Calls,
Take cover, indeed!!! Given your apparent disdain for the professionalism of helicopter pilots, maybe you can explain why you like hanging out on 'Rotorheads' then?
Seriously though, I think that those of us here that fly helicopters and for the airlines have the utmost respect for professional helicopter pilots, often rated on 2 or 3 widely-varying types, flying SPIFR in and around busy airspace. You may well hear some "gems" but there are a lot of PPL-flown helis out there too - I'm sure when you were a PPL your R/T wasn't word perfect!! Some heli pilots might not be at home in the IFR/CAS environment, but if you only fly Airbuses you wouldn't be too good at going VFR from, for example, LGW to LTN!
Remember that there are a lot of us 'dual-rated' types flying commercial helicopters because it is difficult, demanding and a whole lost more satisfying than twiddling knobs on the autopilot! I know which group of pilots I view as being the more versatile and flexible all-round aviators!

[ShyTorque]

To be fair to 'VisualCalls', he did of course say some, not all.

There are muppets and aces out there, in all types of aircraft. ;)

(Being one of the SPIFR rotary folk, I hope I don't often fit into the former category. :uhoh: )

[The Jolly Roger]

Just to add a note on this. I work the Shannon FIR occassionally and I must say that MOST VFR pilots are excellent to work with. However, I think most also think they are being provided with a RADAR service. Technically they are not. They are simply being provided with an information and alerting service. Althought we use radar to give us approx positions on aircraft, because VFR's are so low, they fall in and out of coverage. So its not always possible to provide accurate position info. Ye know yourselves....VRF (Very F****ing Risky...its SEE and BE SEEN!!!) Unfortunately, mistakes are made and there are misunderstandings from time to time between controllers and pilots alike. I keep saying, just use sandard phraseology and this will minimise anything going wrong.

[OEI and Still Flying]

Spare a taught for the controller in the tower.
If procedure is being followed and an investigation is pending.
I believe procedure for the controller is to be pulled and put on paid leave awaiting outcome.
Don’t forget that these controllers put their licence on the line as well.
They really put trust in us operating that close to centre lines of major airports and expect their instructions will be followed. (Sometimes non-compliance as in this case catches them out)
The outcome for the controllers is more serious for them in a situation like this.

[Visual Calls]

Shy torque is right, I said SOME pilots. Before criticising, it is incumbent upon you to actually read what I wrote, but no, you'd rather just jump on in without thinking.
Funnily enough, the incident in question wouldn't have happened if the heli pilot had stopped to think first. Nor would some of the other incidents I related. Makes one wonder. Shooting oneselves in the foot......

I'm sure when you were a PPL your R/T wasn't word perfect!!When you're sharing busy airspace with numerous items of fast, heavy and not very agile commercial jets, many of whose pilots have limited English, there is no room for error or amatuerism. Can't use proper R/T, regardless of experience? Then stay away from the zone.

The problem is not one of commercial heli pilots. The problem is too many PPL's in above their heads mixing it with commercial traffic. As I said, there is no room for amateurism up there.
This equally applies to fixed wing amateurism too of course. It's just that the fixed wing tend to not operate so often in the control zone, whereas the heli's do.

[4ftHover]

Visual Calls

I understand your point totally and i have heard poor RT from both fixed wing and helicopter pilots.

I am a PPL that trained, qualified and now fly from a site within a controlled zone. For this reason i am comfortable with the RT as it's something i have grown up with.

I do believe there are PPL's that during training hardly ever fly near a control zone and find the prospect of talking to major airports quite daunting.

Maybe this is something that should be addressed whilst training ?

[raven2]

The problem is not one of commercial heli pilots. The problem is too many PPL's in above their heads mixing it with commercial traffic. As I said, there is no room for amateurism up there
Was the pilot of the A109 involved a PPL ? Or is this just a turning in to a PPL bashing thread?:rolleyes:
Raven

[120torque]

Just to add quickly only 1 out of last 10 airprox reports involve a heli. http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=14&pagetype=65&appid=7&newstype=a

And from what I read by VisualCalls it appeared that bad r/t from rotary caused all airprox's !!!!!

Is there likely to be a transcript of the ATC conversation with the A109 becoming available ?? (want to know if the readback from the 109 pilot was correct or not - did he readback "cleared after" ??)

[Jimbo1]

I know there is a huge amount of Helis knocking around but cant imagine to many PPL's flying 109's or twins in general?

[Helipolarbear]

This has nothing to do with PPL's or CPL's. It has everything to do with safety and common sense, (or lack of).:rolleyes: I understand the AAIU are now involved. Lets wait for the report.:ok:

[funfinn2000]

Ireland is full of really class pilots with ppls and cpl,s flying singles and twins vfr and ifr. and there is a small few who give the rest a bad name, a few bad apples. The Institute here need to focus on the training schools and stamp out their dodgy examiners who do 15min LPC's, there is no real training sylabus and the laws of learnng are not used. Things are better thought right the first time. Thank F**K we have the IHOP now. We could have a whole day course on RUNWAY INCURSIONS. I believe the 109 pilot is not of this land and has been flying here a short time and conducts mainly UK flights. Glad nobody was hurt and I sincerly hope that this report is made public quickly as we can use it as a lesson for all to learn.
Happy crimbo.!!

[Robino]

This is about good airmanship and nothing else, the PIC was given a instruction read it back correctly and then did the opposite!!! The sooner the regulator looks at procedures a la Heathrow were you can cross abeam the threshold this will happen again.

[PPRNkof]

Another near miss in Ireland is being investigated it appears.
Reported today in the Irish Independant, link below.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/probe-after--plane-and-helicopter-miss-crash-by-30-feet-1308889.html


This time it was at Dublin airport. It appears that the chopper pilot lost the run of himself. Full report won't be available for a month or two I'd imagine. Extract from the article below:


An investigation is under way into how a helicopter and a private jet came within 30ft of each other as they took off from Dublin Airport shortly before Christmas, it emerged yesterday.


It is understood that the helicopter pilot was cleared by air traffic control to cross behind the executive jet, which had just taken off on December 17 last.
However, the helicopter pilot actually passed in front of it, forcing the airplane pilot to take evasive action.
The air traffic controller had earlier asked the helicopter pilot if he had seen the departing jet and he replied that he had.

It is accepted procedure for controllers to clear helicopters to fly behind departing flights, in order to keep traffic at the busy airport moving.
The near-miss is believed to have happened at around 500ft and it is unclear how many passengers and crew were on board the two aircraft at the time.
The incident was a serious breach of air safety regulations and was immediately reported by the Irish Aviation Authority to the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU).
A spokesperson for the unit last night confirmed it was examining the case but said he could not provide further details as the investigation is on-going.
The earlier near-collision between a Ryanair Boeing 737 and a Flightline MD-83 off the south-east coast on September 23 was the most serious air-safety scare investigated by the AAIU in seven years.

[ketchup]

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=316949

[Thousand Island]

It's nearly the end of April and still no AAIU report into how this serious incident happened. Would any one else like to learn what we can be done to avoid what sounds like a very close encounter?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/probe-after--plane-and-helicopter-miss-crash-by-30-feet-1308889.html