Would You Report An Airmiss/airprox
 

As a Pilot/ATCO would you report an Airmiss/Airprox if it was not seen except by yourself? By the book you should, but in reality who would? this is an open question and I have my own view but just wondered about others.

As a pilot, there is always another party that could put in paperwork...

As an ATC we supposedly have a 'no fault' culture. If you put your hand up you are likely to get some sort of managerial support, for whatever that is worth. If you don't put your hand up you are very unlikely to receive any support except from your union and even then they might cut you loose when it comes out, because more than likely it will...

More than likely the pilots would have noticed an ATC breakdown especially since TCAS now has a wider audience; although sometimes this won't always be apparent to pilots... But an airprox certainly would be.

Radar and R/T data is being retained, and at many centres the possibility exists to print out losses of separation, so you would have to be pretty thick to try to cover it up, knowing the chances of being caught

And your view is?

Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt several times. Why? Because I tried to act like a professional, and so did the colleagues I worked with. Have things changed that much?

Separation Monitoring Function...no hiding place even if you were daft enough to want to :rolleyes:

My view is that any incident should be reported but I have found that certain ones have not been due to self preservation. Also incidents, as you well know, can be caused by many different factors which need to be rectified to prevent further incidents.
As far as I'm aware SMF is not at all units therefore some incidents will not be seen nor reported. From what I remember when working ATC the MATS Pt 1 states that all incidents should be reported. I just think that at the moment certain ones are not reported.

Ah, but they may be at other units. You never know who's watching.

AND that shouldn't be underlying reason to dob yourself in.

I had an Airprox a number of years ago at a unit where you worked alone.

I got caught assuming that an aircraft would land; it went around instead and caught me on the climb out with other traffic.

As I was alone I sorted things out safely, and reported the facts and my actions as required by the regulations. The pilots involved were aware of the problem, but were very happy with my actions and did not file themselves.

I filed on myself - and lost my validation! I had to revalidate subsequently.

Would I do the same thing again? My heart says No because of the grief I put myself through, my professional head says Yes so that hopefully others can learn from my mistake. That is the professional thing to do, but management attitudes may (have!) make controllers think twice unfortunately.

"Never Assume - Check!"

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In Oz if you don't report an incident you are aware of it is termination time if you are sprung.

I would have reported it anyway, honest.

On the topic of SMF, this is a very useful tool if it is available at your own unit (as long as it is used correctly by the management). But I would be very wary of using it to try to assess what is happening at another unit. The kit cannot distinguish, for example, between two aircraft, one of which is VFR, or a heli waiting to cross the runway and being watched by the controller. In both these examples the distance between two aircraft can quite legitimately be very less than radar separation.

I heard of an incident where two jets on final approach got so close that the 2nd one had to be broken off by the watch manager who was working the approach radar position but transmitted on the tower frequency to give the instructions. The incident was reported to the Air Traffic Manager who then failed to report to the CAA or pursue any further action. The watch manager then reported to the air traffic manager that the initial reporter of the incident had attended work under the influence of alchohol. The reporting person was then suspended and subsequently resigned. So to me it is be carefull who reports what.

I heard about the incident. It also appears that the Air Traffic Manager is on the UK Joint Airprox Board. So it looks to me that the Investigators of incidents are not reporting such events at their own units. Sounds to me like a case of "I better not report that one as it affects me and my position and status in the community". Not like "I'd better report this one as I am a professional and it would not look good that a member of the airprox board was not reporting incidents as we are supposed to do".

Good luck to the honesty and integrity of th UK Airprox Board & UK Aviation if they have people like that.

Doesn't make the unit concerned, the airprox board, srg or the local examiners look good at all.

ILS119.5 I take my hat off to you. You appear to be an absolute mine of stories about people doing naughty things at units......

You can take that how you choose.....

What is wrong in telling the truth, being sincere and honest to ensure other people in life who are not doing this are gaining from their activities. My posts are to ensure Aviation Safety on a profesional level, if the people that I post about cannot maintain a professional level then they do not deserve to work in the industry.