The penalties for the French nuclear TRAs have been variously reported at 10k euros and/or confiscation of the aircraft.
I have no idea whether this is true, and I have never heard of anybody getting such a fine. Is there any supporting evidence?
In 2003 I busted a French nuclear TRA. This was when the old UK notam website
NATS | AIS was barely usable and they did not appear on there. They also did not appear on the then current IGN charts (and did not appear on them for a further year). I never realised anything, landed in the UK, heard nothing for 5 months, and then got a letter from the UK CAA asking me who the pilot was on the flight, etc, saying the French asked the CAA to prosecute me.
I had long ago chucked out my flight notes but did recall French ATC asking me lots of details about me (name, etc) at the time, while never indicating why they wanted to know.
I asked the CAA to obtain the radar trace, which showed that I was indeed under a radar service, with a discrete non-7000 squawk.
It was fairly obvious that French ATC saw me all along, did nothing about it, and afterwards somebody blew his top...
To cut a long story short, the CAA agreed there were serious notam issues, and sent me an extremely stroppy letter, signed by some Rear Admiral with a massive fountain pen and a double-barreled name, and told the French that they dealt with it. This I thought was pretty good of them.
Later that year, but
before I got the initial CAA contact letter above, I flew the same route but luckily above the 1000m (3200ft) AGL TRA ceiling. This time, ATC were much more on the ball and suggested a change of route, taking me several miles away from the TRA edge, just to be sure... but I already knew of the TRA, from the SIA charts.
Got to be careful down there
