and here it is:
Wow, this has certainly got peoples attention and it's time to put the record straight from a Kemble point of view. This has been a very trying and difficult week for us after the tragic accident here on Friday that claimed the life of our fire service boss, Steve Mills, and we will all miss him greatly.
The aircraft in question on Monday ppr'd to say he would be arriving at 1640hrs local, the aircraft was late and hastly joined on a right base from the Gloucester direction as he was running late. The aircraft confirmed that he did not have an indemnity to land after hours and the duty FISO (equally hastly) did say that an out of hours charge may apply. The aircraft landed at 1706hrs local and a £150 charge was mentioned (not on the radio) because 6 of our staff (3 x ops and 3 x Firemen) had to stay back to deal with it, not just the landing but the subsequent taxiing and ops staff in the tower had to hang around for the pilot to appear. Anyhow, the £150 was not paid and it was not even invoiced so no fee was forthcoming, we are not in the business of giving GA pilots grief but in this case a point had to be made because of the knock on effect.
Had the pilot requested to land out of hours we would have sorted him out with a form, taken his landing fee over the phone and none of this would ever had surfaced. This is the same way we would deal with any out of hours request and if you land before 1700 local you can depart anytime afterwards (unlicensed) and long as you make the correct blind calls and had a brief prior to leaving. Most of you on here have already stated how friendly and helpful we are, this is what we will always try to acheive but unfortunately a lot of us have worked a lot of hours (above and beyond the call of duty) over the last week dealing with the aftermath of the loss of a great friend and colleague.
If we ever fall short of not giving you all a better than average service then as Operations Manager I want to know about it and I would be happy for you to contact me direct on
[email protected] and, as always, I will try and sort out any issues that you may have.
BOSE - X
People die all the time, its life. Get over it.
Normally I wouldn't give people like you the courtesy of a response, but this time I am going to bite.
Steve Mills was not only a very good friend, a close family member and a consumate professional, but he was also a gentleman of the first order.
Something which you may consider wishing to aspire to but I very much doubt you'll ever achieve.