ATC-ARFF-FlightCrew emergency communication
 

Hello

I´m a commercial pilot (A320) and also study air safety management at city university/ UK. For my project i´m doing research on ATC-ARFF-Flight Crew emergency communication. One part will be the effectiveness of a discrete frequency. Certain german airports are currently testing the use of a def. For UK airports this is normal for more then a decade. Therefore i would like to know from you ( fire fighters, atc, pilots):
What problems/ challenges did you face, when you had to communicate with ATC-ARFF-Flight Crew in an emergency or during an incident?
for example language, different perception, etc.
What are the negative aspect of a discrete frequency ( if there are any)?
Where do you see room for improvement when it comes to ATC-ARFF-Flight Crew emergency communication?
Would be very useful if you could share your experience.
Thank you
Hoschi

The use of a discrete VHF frequency for pilots to communicate with the safety services has been employed in the UK for more than a decade - for at least 40 years at some places. It was very simple: When an aircraft with a problem left the runway the pilot was instructed to contact the safety services on box 2. He then let ATC know when the safety services had authorised him to continue to the gate. All very simple and it worked well..

The FAA published a list of handsignals for firefighters in order to communicate with flight crews in case of communication breakdowns. They are called Standard Emergency Hand and Arm Signals (Recommend Evacuation/ Recommend Stop/Emergency Contained).
Do those handsignals also exists in the UK and are they useful?

IIRC in the States the fire trucks at major airfields had the frequency painted on the sides.

The frequency normally used in the UK is NOT an ATC frequency and ATC cannot normally transmit or receive it; as HD says it is solely for comms between the crew of the aircraft and AFRS.

interesting to learn:

In a similar case as UPS B744 in DXB, when the pilot could not see or change freq. the R VHF is always set to 121.5, easy to use, so if a pilot uses only 121.5 all the way from cruise FL to PAX evac in any airport, would he be able to communicate with all ATC concerned?
Any ATC station can communicate in 121.5?
Are the FIRE CREWS also on 121.5?

A change of frequency in not always possible as the UPS case showed

In the UK, it's rare for a civil airport ATC or RFFS to be able to access 121.5; usually ATC wise it's only the ATCC that has it by virtue of the 'Distress and Diversion' cell.
The system usually is that if you have an emergency, you stay on the frequency in use (except when you need to communicate with RFFS) and the controller offloads all other traffic to another frequency.

Latest on this?
 

from AeroSafety World June 2012 pp42-45- I hope this is interesting for you, hoschi

We have a discrete frequency for ARFF here and it works well. We also monitor 121.5 and I'm pretty sure all towers in Canada do.

We also have a tuneable vhf in the cab and can access any frequency through that radio it has limited range and is most often used to get over flights on the correct freq for the ACC.

In the UK, it is now a requirement for ATC Control Towers and Approach Control Sectors, serving international aerodromes and international alternative aerodromes*, to be able to provide a service on 121.500.

As 121.500 is an ATC frequency, the equipment/recording needs to comply with the usual CAA requirements and as a result, a lot of units have signed an annual LoA with D&D to provide such a service on their behalf until such time they have the equipment to be able to provide the service themselves.

Whether these units will ever have the equipment to provide the service or will continue to sign a new LoA each year remains to be seen!

* A list of Aerodromes deemed to be 'International' available on request!

I'm not sure about all units but we can certainly select the freq to monitor if required (not sure about transmitting on it)

We have transmit/receive capability on 121.5 and receive only on 121.6.