Originally Posted by
le Pingouin
Ixixly, how about training pilots to always have a plan B?
Controllers are trained to say "no" as part of ensuring workload remains manageable, it's part of the job because if the workload exceeds your ability to handle you're no longer in control. You don't just say "yes" without considering the consequences - a random unannounced flight presents a challenge because you need to work out where they are & how you'll separate. You don't just make it up as you go along but continually plan.
There will always be situations where a controller will say "no", there is no way of avoiding that. As I mentioned, airspace is just another obstacle to be avoided if a clearance is denied, no different to weather or terrain, so treat it as such.
Let me put it this way le pingouin, point to a specific way in which a Pilots training can be changed to ensure Pilots are always trained to have a Plan B? IMHO, you can't, there's simply no easy way to put that into regulation or a tick box to make sure they'll always do that so why even bother looking at this aspect? It's been identified that bad decisions were made here and they didn't do enough prep from the beginning. We also don't know if he had a Plan B or not, we can't ask because he's dead, we don't know his mindset or why he made the decisions he made, we can only make educated guesses based on very little information which makes it even hard to find deficiencies that can be rectified and even then those deficiencies would mean locating the people involved in his training and ensuring they don't train anyone else that way if they even still train anyone which all things considered is probably unlikely.
On the other hand, we DO have the ATC involved on the day, we CAN pick their brains to figure out why they decided not to give this clearance and then we CAN figure out if there is a way to make it easier for ATC in the future, to do something that seems like it should have been relatively easy to do. The persons that have trained this ATC are almost certainly still in the organisation and teaching others so we can much more easily rectify any deficiencies that may exist in the way they're teaching others and disseminate that information across to everyone for the future.