atc infringement
seems the offending balloon was not as bad as originally reported...here is their report..
Disqualification of Team Switzerland 3
Disqualification of Team Switzerland 3
The 2006 Gordon Bennett Race will go down in history with the longest tracks ever achieved on the European continent. For all crews it was a unique experience with many unforgettable experiences and impressions.
Unfortunately, this race had to deal as well with a number of violations of controlled air space. Also Switzerland 3 is among the alleged culprits:
On the morning of September 12 around 06:20 we cruised at about 6000 ft above the Botti Sea towards Finland. Winds were far from ideal, though. We were very busy with the evaluation of meteorological data over the satellite phone. Too late did we realize that Vaasa airport was straight ahead of us. We already were 10 Minutes well within the TMA when we immediately contacted Vaasa airport. ATC reacted quite calmly and advised us to descend below 1000 ft. That was exactly what we immediately did. ATC gave no sign of an aircraft on ground unable to take off because of Switzerland 3. That was communicated to us not earlier than next morning on the occasion of the presentation of the final results when we were confronted with our disqualification.
Wondering about why we did not file formal protest against this extremely hard judgment is now widespread. But we finally came to the conclusion that we should signal to all present and future Gordon Bennett pilots that air space infringements cannot be tolerated under any circumstances nowadays.
In our case it was the alleged delay of a scheduled aircraft. On the other hand, in Stavanger and Bodo all balloons have for whatever reasons committed air space violations without advance notice, thus blocking the airports for some time. The close examination of these cases is still under way, and we are quite curious about its results. Understandably, we expect from the Gordon Bennett Race authorities an evenhanded approach and the application of equally strict yardsticks to all air space infringements as well as the eventual disqualification of crews involved – irrespective of names and ranks.
Although our disqualification does, in our opinion, not conform with the rules, we do accept it. But we also hope that pilots in future Gordon Bennett Races will strictly adhere to the ATC-rules , so that the final results can be presented without any legal proceedings hovering in the background.
We are very sorry to have caused additional work for the officials of the 2006 Gordon Bennett Race.
Team Switzerland 3: Kurt Frieden and Stefan Zeberli