Originally Posted by
Intrance
So, mystery solved. Crew tried to coordinate a safe departure with ATC, seemed to have succeeded in this while on the ground, but ATC seems to have not communicated well between each other confusing the crap out of everyone in the end.
No quite , I am not 100% sure how Boeing field ATC is operated ( waiting to be corrected) , but if this was in n a European airport it would be like this : , it looks like a VFR departure / circuit was requested, the TWR controller would gets only basic info for a circuit .Who should tell him that it is in fact not a circuit but an oceanic VFR departure getting an IFR clearance afterwards if the crew is not mentioning it on first call ? The Approach is not located in the airport and they normally do not coordinate VFRs with ground control of the airports they provide APP above a certain ALT. , They would expect the crew filing the IFR flight plan to do this. Again ,it looks like a VFR circuit was requested and for the Tower controller a VFR pattern it is 1500ft max ,and that is what he gave the crew,
On first contact he clearly says maintain 1500ft VFR, and report downwind , acknowledged by the crew then later cleared base and again acknowledged, it was for me, and obviously for the TWR controller. never clear what the crew really wanted , probably to straight away contact APP and get IFR..
I would love to see the VFR plan ( if it exists) and who made it , and the IFR Flight plan requested , and if the TWR was on the recipients list of that Plan .
I guess good lessons have been learned here, and procedures will most probably be amended to prevent a recurrence,