Tea Breaks at MME ATC

[DIRECTTANGODELTA]

MME "closed" for 3 x 30 minute ATC staff breaks today, its not the first time. The Ryanair Dublin flight was descending towards the field at "Gasko" reporting point and was told to fly towards the TD NDB as radar was on a break and keep a good look out!!

Is MME trying to close down? Is this legal? Can they not recruit/afford ATC officers?

Its a mess!! I wish someone would get a grip!!

[hetfield]

Oh my God!:ugh:

[Loki]

So why isn`t this thread on ATC issues?

Some answers might be had there methinks (though not all polite given the tone of the previous post)

[aw8565]

Surely there are legal requirements for rest periods while on shift? If they cannot cover the workload and get the breaks in then its not laziness but shortage of manpower for whatever reason?

[1996]

I'm afraid it's down to SRATCOH chaps - Scheme for The Regulation of Air Traffic Controller's hours. By law a controller MUST take a 30 minute break after 2 hours work. At large units there are enough staff for this break to be transparent to flight crew. At smaller units this may not be the case, or there may be sickness resulting in only one radar qualified controller on duty who will be doing 2 hours on, 1/2 off.

[Gonzo]

If this is true, well done to the guy(s) there for adhering to the law.

I wonder how hetfield and No_Speed_Restriction would react to someone having a go at them for refusing to fly when out of crew hours.

I was once almost in the position of being the only ATCO at Heathrow overnight; my other two colleagues had called in sick. I was starting to familiarise myself with the NOTAM form for closing the airport every two hours when management persuaded someone to come in off leave.

[loubylou]

Joe - Possibly the reason you couldn't have a procedural approach was probably because the Tower controller wasn't qualified to do that.
It also takes a while to train controllers - average 4-6 months per rating.
Amazing how you all get uppity when the press etc sensationalise a bumpy landing, yet you assume the controllers are being annoying by refusing to put down their brew to vector you in!!:p

louby

[GARDENER]

As an instructor at MME let me begin by saying we are lucky to have a very professional and helpful team in ATC. They are entitled, like everyone else to a break, and the rules are there for a reason. Many accidents have been caused due to fatigue, lack of concentration and so on. I do not expect the IB was unduly delayed? Maintaining a good lookout is lesson one in airmanship certainly in this neck of the woods...radar is a bonus!

[Joe le Taxi]

In my book, to turn up late once is unfortunate; To turn up late twice is careless...and what irked me was that a tonne of our fuel had gone up in smoke for no good reason, we were faced with an imminent diversion and the guy just didn't seem to care, much less; apologise.

(I do emphasise though that this was 6 or 7 years ago and is probably no reflection of the present MME ATC service)

[beamwidth]

We're all just sitting around waiting for the traffic to arrive, so that we can quickly shut down an ATC service, just to spite the drivers, in order to have tiffin!
Bugger, we've all been rumbled.:rolleyes:
Ignorance must indeed be bliss!
ps can someone please move this thread to the ATC forum, to get the reaction of the rest of us " lazy :mad: " , thats assuming that we can get the time to read/reply!!!!!!!

[timelapse]

I predict a riot.

Had the controller not taken a break because (s)he felt compelled to carry on regardless, broken the law, and the Dublin inbound been accidentally turned right instead of left, hit terrain and lots of people been killed - who would be at fault?

They would!

I would guess they were short staffed or had the same situation that Gonzo had - what can you do? Unless there was an emergency in progress I think the only thing they can legally do is to take the break. So :D tbh.

From what I understand it's common practice to refuse to fly if you're over your hours and as a pilot you would not be very happy with management if they tried to force you to do otherwise...

[ComJam]

I'm based at teesside.

This problem first became apparent in late 2006. To my knowledge the ATC unit at DTVA is currently under-staffed and is therefore not always fully able to cover the operational hours of the airport.

From my experience, if this is likely to happen during the day, all operators are informed that DTVA may be closed for half hour periods. I've no doubt it's also NOTAMed.

It is NOT the case that the controllers can't be ar*ed, there just aren't enough of them at the minute.

There's no real hardship in carrying an extra half hours worth of fuel is there?!

Cut them some slack...

[54.98N]

Dont blame the controllers.

Maybe the mangagement can't be ar**d or dont want to pay the cost of staffing ATC suitably to handle commercial (i.e. paying) traffic.

[discountinvestigator]

OK, let us take a look at legal responsibility. Firstly, any SRATCOH breaking controller would be able to plead various different mitigations and only in the event of deliberately dangerous rule violations would such action stand a chance of being successful. For example, if you were in the more remote outer islands and had not had an aircraft for several hours, then to wait for a late inbound might not be too strenuous. To do an extra half hour at Heathrow or Gatwick might be a little more problematic.

The management should have performed an in-depth risk assessment of the balance between the change in probability of controller error against the risks associated with closure of airspace/downgrade from radar to procedural etc. Therefore, if a controller is asked to stay on, it may be lower risk than airspace closure.

OK, now management responsibility. They are responsible for ensuring that the operation of the airspace associated with their airport is safe. So, if the procedures which they have written, and of course analysed for risk implications, require holding for half an hour during teabreaks, so be it.

Should there be a mid-air collision in class G airspace, then of course, the pilot would be at fault, according to Air Law. This would be mitigated by "duty of care" implications.

The MATS Part 2 contains detailed contingency procedures for all such items (or at least it should do). Closure of radar facilities is a NOTAM item, so the pilots should have been in receipt of the NOTAM, or have been warned by en-route, prior to the lack of service.

So, the controller was in the right to go off on a break, and the CAA consider that the risk was acceptable and managed to be as low as reasonably practicable. Of course, you had diversion fuel, so nothing to worry about in reality.

Happy landings

Discount.

[Gonzo]

For example, if you were in the more remote outer islands and had not had an aircraft for several hours, then to wait for a late inbound might not be too strenuous.I would suggest that in fact from an HF point of view the ATCO in the remote outer island airport might not be any better off. Have you tried to stay awake (in the middle of the night) or focused (during the day) for 'several hours' without anything to do?

To do an extra half hour at Heathrow or Gatwick might be a little more problematic.Which is taken into account by local agreements (certainly at LHR) where we work a maximum of 1.5 hours before a break 0700-2200.

When UK ATCOs start talking about that hypothetical 'day in court', I believe most are not really thinking about it in reality, at least not if they know their employers' SMS. However, responsibility for safety is drummed into us from day one, and SCRATCOH is there to protect against the probability/possibility of fatigue. In this case it seems there was no flight safety risk for the aircraft to hold until the ATCO completed his break. If there was a flight safety risk, things might have been different.

[Inverted81]

For reference CAP670 Part D Section 2
enjoy
:}

[hangten]

Which is taken into account by local agreements (certainly at LHR) where we work a maximum of 1.5 hours before a break 0700-2200.

yes, lgw also.

[MerseyView]

Just had a flight of mine delayed by 1hr 15 mins due to controller shortage at MME. I quite agree that controllers should have adequate rest, I also think that if Durham Chad Valley want to be taken seriously as an international airport for a change then maybe the person 'in charge' there should make sure they employ enough controllers to run ATC during the time that airlines are scheduled to bring passengers to them. :rolleyes:

[Pierre Argh]

Evidence of a quantum-shift in attitude? Where once the view was work on through the problem, come-what-may the job must be done! The first thought today is responsibility... and in a letigious society I'm afraid that's the price we have to pay.

Of course a controller could work a little longer, I've even heard of controllers doing things they'd been trained for but weren't actually qualified in yet (yes, seriously)... but that was then when you might get away with it; today when the SHTF it is hard to find a defence for breaking the rules.

Nowhere is going to have enough back-up staff to cover for when, say, several controllers going sick, or a broken down car and the challenge finding a taxi company at 0600 to get into open the airfield - you just rely on the improbability of it happening?

An inconvenienced pilot (sorry chaps), but they have a choice... burn off a bit of fuel, or divert. Safety isn't compromised, only profit and in my books that's the right way around?

[Mike Tee]

New on here and this MME thread caught my eye. I can remember years ago when Air Malta used to arrive at Teesside with Boeing 720,s very early on a Sunday morning. I can remember standing on the Spectators Gallery watching the 720 on the downwind leg over the Cleveland Hills, repeatedly calling Teesside Aproach. Eventually he re-called Border Radar and was instructed by them to enter the Hold and that they would get on the Phone to Teeside to see what was going on. Eventually and after about 20 minutes somebody must have turned up at ATC and the 720 was given landing instructions. It was very early doors mind !!

[Del Prado]

there is so much pressure on air traffic service providers to cut costs that these interuptions in service are inevitable, the only surpirise is that they don't happen more often and at bigger units.

Airline management want so much to cut their navigation charges they don't seem to realise how much it's costing them in fuel and their own staff costs when a controller goes sick.

So the next time you're sitting in the hold waiting for a controller to finish their break don't get mad at them, get mad at your own management for trying to save pennies at the cost of pounds.

[thinkofdolphins]

Only just seen this thread and my response is to a comment a bit further up the page. The comment was along the lines of "I had to hold because the controller hadn't turned up on time" I guess pilots never get stuck in traffic on route to work. For some reason (can't imagine why) traffic on the way to work is not a predictable quantity. With small units operating on staffing which works fine when no one is ill but falls apart when winter sniffles fly around the air con like SARS, then there are times for matters of SAFETY that ATC positions cannot open or have to be closed. Night shifts are normally the longest shift we can work and I can't imagine anyone is fit to work into the morning shift to accomodate staffing issues. Would someone fancy flying in from States and then be told pop across to another plane to do couple more sectors as FO has gone sick and the standby pilot (what a luxury that would be!) is stuck on M25. Oh you can't do that can you, as it's illegal. I shall step off my soap box now :rolleyes:

[welcome_stranger]

Oh Diddims, a year ago someone was slightly put out and had to hold because the controller was having their legally required break - Oz would love to have to have controllers screen time regulated.

Come to OZ mate we don't bother with holding we just close whole blocks of airspace - some larger than the UK entire FIRs cause we're running out of controllers - and turn them into TIBAs (a la african airspace).

Last night 4 controllers looked after an area larger than the European airspace for 4 hours straight with only a quick runs to the loo (if they were lucky) or to get a tea/coffee.

And the night before a strip of airspace up the Qld coast approx 250nm x 100nm 0-60,000ft was uncontrolled (TIBA) from 2330-0500 local.

The sooner ANSPs stop treating Air Traffic Control as a business to make money from and get back to providing the service as agreed to in the convention the better off everyone - management, controllers, airlines and the travelling public will be.

30-60 min holding - luxury

:hmm: