The Air Marshal is clearly ill informed. This is a damning reflection on the advice Air Marshal Brown receives. Let me quote from Air Marshal’s Media Release:
“The likelihood of holding is increased for aircraft that do not submit a flight plan because the aircraft's data needs to be manually entered into the Air Traffic Control system”.
By this, Air Marshal Brown clearly means that pilots should submit a flight plan if they want to fly the safer, more direct route so holding and delays are reduced and safety is improved. However, Air Marshal Brown clearly doesn’t know that it is not possible to file such a flight plan. That is why I stated on the Channel 7 Sunday Night program,
“The restrictions are still there. You can’t file a flight plan across the top of Williamtown”.
I then went on to say,
“you can do something with this show if we can get these rules changed, as they will save lives in the future”.
Here we have the Air Marshal agreeing with me, i.e.
“The likelihood of holding is increased for aircraft that do not submit a flight plan because the aircraft's data needs to be manually entered into the Air Traffic Control system”.
Air Marshal Brown just happens to omit a slightly important point which I will say again –
you can’t file a flight plan over Williamtown when it is active! That clearly means the Willi Controller has no prior knowledge of the aircraft that is about to call for clearance. This is ridiculous in these modern days of technology. Once we remove that restriction from the Enroute Supplement, there will be a clear message that pilots are allowed to fly the safest way possible, i.e. over the low terrain coastal area over Williamtown rather than being forced to the west into the Barrington Top mountains as MDX was thirty years ago and as pilots are today.
Once again, I stand by what I said and that is the only reason MDX did not continue down the coast at a low level in clear weather conditions was because Williamtown was active that night - and I understand there weren’t even any military aircraft flying! It was an outrageous waste of life caused by archaic military rules – and nothing has changed.
Anyone who doesn’t understand this has a real problem.