Originally Posted by
BoeingDriver99
Hello ATCOs,
I’m one of the grateful drivers of the traffic you control and recently had a sim detail that involved RTOs in LVPs. I was told to declare a Mayday or a Pan Pan when stopping because “they’ll line someone up behind you and clear them for takeoff!”
ICAO Doc 4444 only mentions “callsign, stopping” and three UK CAP 413 also sticks to that call on the RT. So my query is what are the procedures for you guys and gals to ensure we have gotten airborne etc? In VMC it’s a visual check that the aircraft is airborne or at least positively rotating successfully. What’s the routine in IMC?
Many thanks and keep up the good work!
(ps. Useful if you could mention which country’s procedures your’e describing!)
UK again.....No need to declare a mayday/PAN. Unless we determine ourselves that you're airborne (or you report if asked), we wouldn't clear another aircraft for take off. However, we do know that if you perform an RTO you may very well require assistance for hot brakes
et al, so a PAN/MAYDAY wouldn't be so surprising.
We can either use the Mode-S ground bit which we see on our ground radar (however, due to the decisions made by Airbus for their modern aircraft (A380, A350, A320neo etc) this is now unreliable and we must determine airborne by another method. This is usually either to see you paint on the air radar display, or via pilot report. We are soon to install an upgraded ground radar system that not only uses ground bit, but also aircraft ground speed, Mode-S level information, and trend (i.e. above the runway and climbing for a period of x seconds) to determine airborne state.