I have been put on a heading by Man tower departing 24L and a go around on 24R has occured.
who's responsible for assuring terrain clearance and the general answer is that it's the commander of the aircraft except when the aircraft is on a ATC instructed heading.
I would disagree with that. Commanders and FO are responsible at all times for terrain clearance. When under a heading the ATCO shares that responsibility. The commander is never ever not responsible for thier aircrafts safety. Thats why we have a MSA call when passing it and brief the radar approach plate / local procedural let down.
Discussions do occur though when for example you get told to decend you below MSA outside the plate zone using there local radar chart and the key hole thing. Which i had never heard about in training. My tendency is to stay above MSA in unknown territory until we are on the plates and can be 100% sure that we were going to miss the granite. In VMC of course its not an issue.
Must admit if I get asked to report my heading I would tend to assume it was a vector. And stick to it. And if nothing heard with a couple of miles to run to the waypoint would get clarification as Man flex has stated. And when cleared presume that the controller had forgotten about us while dealing with the other traffic, which is no problem at all.
The only worry point for me would be if you got told direct and report to the end of the star (with a condition not to procced without ATC clearance on the plate) my tendency would be to take up the hold is this right?
MJ