Category A Flight/Airspace ?
 

Was operating out of LHR this evening, when a RAF Sea King arrived at the Royal Suite. It departed several minutes later with its 'precious' cargo. 40 minutes start delays then ensued as LHR basically closed to allow it right of passage. Delivery mentioned 'Category A Flight' and at least one femail controller got her knickers in a twist when asked about it. Can anyone shed any light on this incident and please let me know what a Cat A flight is? Is it like purple airspace?

Cheers

Sean D

Can't tell you anything about the particular flight 'cos I'm nothing to do with LHR but cat A is an internal UK ATC prioritisation assigned to "Aircraft in emergency (e.g. engine fault, fuel shortage, seriously ill passenger). Aircraft which have declared a 'Police Emergency'. Ambulance/Medical aircraft when the safety of life is involved".

It's not something that pilots have any need to be aware of (although, as you noticed, such a flight may have an impact on other operations) and I don't think it is taught during training routinely so a controller mentioning the categorisation of the flight on the RTF is usually rather confusing for aircraft on the frequency.

You can find more details in the UK controllers' manual CAP 493 Manual of Air Traffic Services. As far as I am aware it's not in ICAO so you will probably find that it is not a categorisation that is commonly recognised outside the UK.

As said, far more important than a VIP. Had to be an emergency flight of some sort. VIPs, at best, get cat B but ordinarily C.

It was a medical evac. To give you some idea, that was Cat A, and Queen Elizabeth who departed earlier in the day was Cat C.

Thanks for the info guys - now I have something to tell the punters in future. Because otherwise they just think we are spinning them a yarn.

Just out of curiosity - why the 10mins ban on movements ? Is that limited to slow moving helis or all a/c?

Also - would Northolt not be a better place for this type of flight rather than the World's busiest airport operating at max capacity?

ATB

Sean

It was meeting someone off a commercial flight.

There was no '10 minute ban'. There were no departures for probably six or seven minutes while the helicopter entered the runway, waited for 3 minute vortex, departed to the NE on track to it's destination, until it had cleared the SID tracks.

Thanks for the further info

The controller on delivery was mentioning 10 mins due to CAT A - we assumed (wrongly, it would appear) that the two went hand in hand.

I would assume (hope) that the medivac was because someone fell ill on a commercial flight inbound LHR rather than it being pre arranged before they left. Unless of course they were VIP ;-)

ATB

SD

If you consider an accident on the M25 Sean, with the motorway closed to allow a medivac helicopter to land. That's going to delay more people and for longer than the circumstances last night.
(If there's a police helicopter chasing bad guys near the M25/M4 that would be another occasion to delay your departure.)

I think the reason "one femail controller got her knickers in a twist" was perhaps that she got fed up with being questioned? As your post shows, airline pilots aren't used to giving priority to non commercial flights? ;)

However, I can't begin to speculate on the circumstances that would require a search and rescue Sea King to pick someone up off a flight at Heathrow and take them to hospital, they must have been in really bad shape. DOes anyone know the story?

It would have been pre-arranged to get a no doubt seriously ill person to whichever hospital or specialist unit they were going to as efficiently as possible.

In such circumstances anybody is a VIP and a 10 minute delay to folk going on holiday is neither here nor there.

We stop or delay traffic for HEMS as well and, if anyone else is like me, quietly cross our fingers that we never have the misfortune to have need of its excellent services on a personal basis.

My last post on the topic:

Sean Dell, check your PMs. I think you'll find that it was very justified, and preplanned. Regardless of your politics, these guys risk their lives, and many have sacrificed them, for our freedom. I think it might be good to be reminded of that from time to time to retain perspective.

The 10mins mentioned was the outbound delay at the time. Shortly after it was up to 30 mins delay outbound. We certainly didn't stop departures for 30 minutes.

Calm down mate - I think he was only askin....

P7

I was only asking. I certainly would never have a problem with an a/c landing at LHR for the purposes of saving a life. I just have a suspicious mind when I don't have all the facts. I also like to tell the passengers why we are late (again), when there appears no good reason for a delay.

I now have more facts (thanks Gonzo) and will quietly crawl back under my stone - until presented with another situation that I cannot quite fathom. In which case I will be back on this forum to ask questions of my aviation collegues who are so adept at providing me with the answers.

Thank you

ATB

SD

It was the seaking from Wattisham, c/s Rescue 125 on an emergency medivac. Scrambled from base to LHR to pcik up casualty & medivac them to Ipswich Hospital.

Cat A means it has absolute priority over everything else except a/c with an even more dire emergency.

Sean Dell.. I imagine they're still happening.... but there are certain flights around London which maybe Cat A and about which ATC will tell you nothing, not even on the phone! Just tell the pax it's "busy"!

Thanks for the Advice HD - I think they might have heard that one before!

Thats cos half of the high priority flights we dont even know about. We just get told to stop departures!