Intercept over Europe (Maaastricht UIR) 29/10?

[Waspy]

Heard Belgian Air Defence supervisor call Continental flight XX on 121.5 for at least 20' at 640Z, urging them to call maastrich ATC. Anybody knows if the crew could finally get on freq? Intercept took place?

I would like to start a topic on 121.5 watch. Although it can be of great interest to watch the freq, it causes new problems on the flightdeck, among which (personnal point of view) increased difficulty to catch ATC calls when at the same time: "XXX technics, this is XXX with pax YY on board , request refuelling upon arrival....You're on guard... You too....etc...."
What are the guidelines given by your company SOPs regarding that matter?:confused:

[Jet2]

Our London controller this morning was also trying every option to try and call Mr Continental. Did a grand job but didn't have any success by the time we were transferred. The benefits of 121.5 far outweigh the problems encountered with it IMHO. Unprofessional chatter is easily solved by the volume switch.

[superpilut]

Unprofessional chatter is easily solved by the volume switch
Thats exactly the problem.

[Jet2]

superpilut

Perhaps my comment was misleading to you. I am not suggesting it be turned down all the way. I personally turn the volume down to a lower, less sound drowning level until the transmission has finished.

[BOAC]

For me (that is me, myself and I in current parlance:D), with two on the f/deck free to listen to ATC, one monitors 121.5; when not approriate, deselect it. It is important the freq is monitored as much as possible, and you just have to put up with the French chatter on the frequency :mad:

We all make mistakes with button selection, so there will ALWAYS be a 'wrong call' at sometime, but the benefits outweigh the disavantages.

[Caudillo]

BOAC, that's something I'd been wondering about - what is this French proclivity for interminable conversations on 121.5? All jokes aside, how and for what do they use it in addition to its world-wide purpose?

[bundybear]

Guard more important than ever, so why in the UK do we block the frequency with "practice PAN'S"?

[BOAC]

Caudillo, I have no idea! However, if they COULD do it in English.............................

[Caudillo]

bundybear - I guess it's better than these languid and moody drawn-out monologues we seem to get when over France no?

[4Screwaircrew]

I don't think we block the frequency with practice pan calls.

It is important that students learn that help is available, and how to access it, and a practical demonstation of how quickly they can be found works wonders for confidence in the system.

When I was an active instrucor I would check via London Information if D+D were able to talk to us prior to calling, I was told by a controller that it helps them remain in practice as well.

These days 121.5 on box 2 or 3 unless weather gathering or communicating on it.

[Airbubba]

We Americans try to reserve guard frequency for real emergencies, ride reports and baseball scores...

[go_edw]

Nice one Airbubba!

Seriously though, you know when it's a weekend and listening to joe bloggs calling up for his practise pan and your half way over france! Can you imagine if the french/dutch/german/italian etc ppl students did the same 121.5 would be jammed.

It's out dated for students to call 121.5 for a training fix- i'm sure the instructors can give students good enough briefings on 121.5 use.

Who doesn't turn the volume down/off to stop listening to them? It's much easier to monitor 121.5 south of france onwards!

[Ambulance 'Charlie Alpha']

On many occasions, when transiting North-bound over the highlands, we'd be asked via the current radar controller to switch to 121.5 and do a "Practice Pan" for controller training. It was good practice for them and me and certainly not considered a waste of time, especially given the speed at which these guys can get a fix on you and help you on your way.

Cheers

ACA

[clicker]

The military lads and lassies have a freq for practice pans (245.10) perhaps the civil folk should have one as well to reduce the traffic on 121.50.

There are other emergency freqs set aside for scene of search etc, perhaps one of these could be used. If a full emergency is taking place on 243.0 they tell the traffic on 245.10 to "go away please" and they could do that on both freqs if required

[Turn It Off]

I did an SRA on 243.0 by mistake a while back. Had the frequency selected to transmit. At least I didn't cock it up for all to hear!

D&D didn't seem too impressed tho ..............:O

[BEXIL160]

There used to be a procedure at what was LATCC (before the split) that enabled the use of 121.51, 121.52 etc etc.

All that was required was a call to D+D to arrange which one they wanted us civil controllers to use..

Sadly technology has "improved" the situation, and from swanwick at least, this option is no longer available.

Rgds BEX

[055166k]

I've had trouble with COA, in particular with one B772. On several occassions whenever I've transferred it to an 833 channel the radio seems to transmit outside the selection.
It has been reported at least twice by me, and LACC Swanwick has the aircraft registration if your chaps want to cross-check.

BEX..believe the "1" and "2" were merely for switching purposes to select appropriate set of geographically positioned 121.5 TX/RX

[Oceanic Airspace]

I too heard this event yesterday.

Just an thought, but, could their last Oceanic Agency have been asked to Selcal them on their last assigned Oceanic Frequency?

Or give all ATC units the facility to Selcal equipped aircraft so equipped on 121.5? It wouldn't matter if the aircraft receiver volume was turned-down.

The actual monitoring of 121.5 is a problem, what with all of the of the non-emergency stuff that goes on. Maybe more of us should be filing Air Safety Reports to highlight the problems, and get the relevant agencies working on resolution(s).

[Max Angle]

Could not agree more, practice PANS on a practice frequency please, and quickly.

[Whaledog]

A lot of good ideas on having an watch on 121.5.
If you have selcal turn it ON!
Three radios? 1 on atc, 2 on guard, 3 on common.
And as for listen to the other radiio 2 and 3 , well thats why god invented FE's .
Just a little bit of professional raqdio skills can solve this " problem" know which transmitt button you have selected.
Otherwise try turning the guard freq volume UP someone calling for help needs to be heard!

[rustle]

You guys whining about the practice PAN calls in the UK might want to read this (http://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=231681) posted by one of the ATCOs who works 121.5 D&D in the UK.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=188874

This was discussed in some detail on the Private Flying forum a few months back where I stirred up a bit of 'a heated debate'. I've also seen comments on the Military forum lambasting us airline types for not monitoring 121.5 well enough.

I don't see how the ATC controllers saying they welcome training calls on Guard has any relevance. The problem is that important calls are missed and volumes turned way down every time someone starts gabbing on Guard. Some summer weekends above the UK it gets ridiculous.

Cheers

WWW

[bundybear]

Granted that there may be benefit in "practice pan's", but I do not think it outways the importance of 121.5 being totally reserved for urgent/emergency tx's.
In my experience, it is only the UK that does this.
These ground tx's have a huge airborne footprint, covering some of the busiest airspace in the world. Airspace where freq. changes are frequent and where the tollerance of aircraft out of comms has to be short. The amount of "chatter" on guard seems to be is increasing, so is the frequency that fighters launch to interrogate us. The unthinkable has not happened yet, but "guard" really could be a crews saving grace.
There is no excuse for not having a good listening watch, but volume up, volume down, volume up, volume down, well, we are only human.
We all teach our kids about the use of 999, 911 or 000 etc. calls, but I do not imagine anyone would actually make practice calls to them to demonstrate what services will be at hand.

IMHO opinion any tx on guard should have us all scrambling for the volume knob to listen more carefully, not sighing and turning the comm volume down again.

BB

[Bluebaron]

I heard this conversation on London Freq. The Continental chap was asking why he had a jet along side. He was informed of the radio handover that he missed. He asked if the Jet was on patrol and was told that it was scammbled just for him.

Said he was sorry and as far as i know that was it.

I have heard a rumour that airlines in future we be charged if this sort of thing happens. Only a rumour though!

BB

[Waspy]

Not a rumor,

we got a message from german ATC two years ago, distributed to all pilots of the company, saying that in the future, captains might be charged with all the costs involved because of the too many unnecessary scrambles in European airspace. Basically, the message was accusing us of being "unprofessional"....no comment.

Besides this, thank you for the numerous replies, including yours f*** (you will recognize yourself).

In the event of a loss of comms in Europe, our company sent a message to some ATC agencies and an ACARS message is sent asap when one of our aircraft is experiencing loss of comms. This IMHO is the best solution to our problems.

I enjoyed the american reply about "real emergencies, beer calls and baseball results"..

Thanks to all.
:ok:

[fmgc]

Thats all very well but in my company many of the prolonged loss of comms has been due to French ATC forgetting to hand the aircraft over to the next freq. Would the controller like to pay the costs then.

My point being that it is not always the pilots fault.

[Lon More]

FMGC In a modern ATC system the controller's display shows a difference between "own" and "other" traffic. If a flight entering a sector has not called on the frequency this is immediately obvious to the controller and after calling the flight a couple of times his next action is to contact the previous controller who will then call the flight to check if he has not QSYed for any reason.
For some reason there seem to be periods when it is always the same operator whose flights are not calling. Some years ago we had Air France doing it on an almost daily basis; then for a while it was SAS.
It sometimes seemed that the only solution would be to refuse the flights as their equipment/crews were not up to standard required. Fortunately I don't think it ever got that far

[Carnage Matey!]

In a modern ATC system the controller's display shows a difference between "own" and "other" traffic

Well lets all hope the system is modern! There are a couple of waypoints off the northern coast of Spain where the Spanish regularly forget to handover crews to the French, resulting in the Spanish calling an aircraft thats out of VHF range and the French trying to contact it on 121.5. It became so frequent that I always made a point of calling the Spanish for a "radio check" every time I approached these waypoints to remind them to hand me over.

[Farrell]

Here's a sound file from Aireps thread from a few months back where a Delta 767 got intercepted by the two Dutch F-16s

Just go to the link and download the clip.
Kind of ominous to hear the Boeing being called 'the target' - and the 'switches safe' at the end.

http://www.zap16.com/Intercept%20f16%20B767%20Delta.htm

[Carnage Matey!]

Rather chilling I thought. I wonder if the nationalities had been reversed would the outcome have been the same?

[slam_dunk]

Guard more important than ever, so why in the UK do we block the frequency with "practice PAN'S"?

Exactly !

I tried to make that point here years ago, but for some people the only place where they can practice a `practice PAN`is on 121,5 :}
The rest of the world doesn´t do that, but who cares :*

[threemiles]

Well lets all hope the system is modern! There are a couple of waypoints off the northern coast of Spain where the Spanish regularly forget to handover crews to the French, resulting in the Spanish calling an aircraft thats out of VHF range and the French trying to contact it on 121.5. It became so frequent that I always made a point of calling the Spanish for a "radio check" every time I approached these waypoints to remind them to hand me over.

When out of VHF range you are for sure out of radar range, too. Then a sophisticated ATC system is not of much help.

[duece19]

As late as yesterday I was flying through France when I was given a whole lot of abuse by the controller. So what was my error??? Well, he called us three times and I missed them all... fair enough you think, but the frenchie was calling us in FRENCH. I dont speak a word french but ofcourse it was my fault for not understandning, what did he expect???

One full minuit of pay attention bla bla bla bla. :* :yuk:


Ive noticed that some ATCOs are very quick to tell you off for the slightest mistake in a readback, or a missed call. Every call from an airplane is for the ATCO but only around 5% of the calls, if that much, on a frequencey is for yourself, so its naturally to miss some stuff every now and again, but still you have to feel like a criminal when you hear the sighs or raised voices. :(

maybe they are just their way of getting us back for "request this and request that" ;)


duece

[Lon More]

slam_dunk Maybe time to adopt "Regional"guard freqs so practice pan etc. can be done there.
Three miles In Europe there is Radnet - a LAN linking about 25 radar sites. It's possible to select any of the radars at any linked unit, e.g. Rhein could select Pease Pottage - not that the info would help.
Some years ago, when developing the NewODS at Maastricht I suggested that the Supervisor's postion be equipped with a (then) 720 channel transceiver expressly for calling aircraft in our airspace but still on the freq. of another unit and out of their range This was refused as too expensive.

[slam_dunk]

I AGREE that student pilots should be allowed to do a "a practice PAN call" BUT not on guard frequency!

They need to practice what to do if they get lost, and they can get a fix from ATC on an normal frequency.
If that frequency is too busy to do it on, of course ATC has a backup frequency to escort the guy.

Let's keep guard frequencies open for what they are intended for: emergencies only :ok:
That way, my volume isn't turned down (because of a practice PAN) when i really need 121,5.

[Bearcat]

its all been said before.....but all the practice pan crap just encourages one to switch off 121.5 until out of uk airspace. verbal diarroha. knocking off 121.5 closes a valuable safety net but theres only so much clap trap one can take through the head set with the best will in the world.