s and t,
NATS' statement on BBC report into claims by anonymous ex-controller
NATS controllers safely handled 240,000 landings at Heathrow last year. We identified 16 incidents where the standard separation was not maintained - none of them were reported as airproxes. There has been only one incident so far this year.
Safety is NATS first priority and we use all the means at our disposal to continue to improve our safety performance. This includes collecting data on all incidents, including these 16, which we analyse for any apparent trends which may help us to improve our standards still further.
In the UK, we have a comprehensive Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme, which provides for independent investigation of serious incidents in UK airspace. Pilots, air traffic controllers and engineers are all required to report in to the MOR scheme.
The review of Heathrow Approach operations is part of our on-going safety improvement process. It looked at a number of incidents, but these were all low-level severity: none of the pilots involved in these incidents believed that their safety had been compromised. We have acted upon the review’s recommendations and kept our regulator fully informed.
Heathrow Approach controllers are not pressurised to deliver continuously maximum landing rate – no ‘pressure’ reports were filed by Heathrow Approach controllers in 2007
Is effectively what they say.
At this point you'll probably say I/we are complacent or something because of my perceived attitude. Fortunately I and my atco and pilot colleagues know we're not and my saying any more than that is probably pointless.