Rules is rules! Jobsworth at Stansted
 

Take a look at this.
http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/content...A12%3A41%3A420

Well at least the RAF showed compassion:D

It's something we (all the services) are very good at, and has little publicity outside the services.

A "Comp A", as I guess this was can use "fastest possible means" - often a helicopter, but I've also known of Timmys being turned back to FI to pick someone up, and Civ Pol being used to break into someone's parents' house to collect their (the parents) passports for a civ flight to Germany when it was the serviceperson who was dying......

I thought you could more or less go where and when you want under a "Rescue" callsign?:confused:

Now here is a news item worth you Ppruning journos getting into the media:(.
Not the RAF's superb actions but the utterly ar*e "stick by the book" response from Stanstead (presumably from an ATCO. This is not a dig at ATC, merely the natural presumption that the Seaking would have been refused by ATC)!).
If you have a job of responsibility then you must be empowered to take responsibility. That must include busting the written rules and procedures when it is the correct thing to do, and when it can be done safely.:ugh:

Air Traffic will usually give medical flights direct routing but it's not a right as far as I know. Still think the tower at Stanstead should have let him in. Maybe they didn't have the full facts.

ATC would not normally make this decision, it's the prerogative of the aerodrome authority, in this case BAA. ATC would have to inform BAA Duty Ops Mgr of the flight, and he/she would say yes or no.

Whoever is responsble, what an arse-up by BAA :E

Teeteringhead said:
Indeed, I was once part of exactly that scenario - half an hour out from MPA, big 180, explanation from "up-front" - no-one complained or even batted an eye-lid :ok:

Appreciating that there may be many good reasons - wondered why this unfortunate chap was being flown to Stansted when the emergency he needed to get to was in Middlesborough? - must be some closer suitable H24 airfields?

Perhaps he flew by CivAir to Stansted from Cyprus?

Maybe? I was assuming something military was conveying him to the UK, but as you say, CivAir can be used for "Comp A" if it's the soonest, closest.

I remember someone getting from Cyprus to The Falklands within 24 hours so that he could visit his father on his deathbed. He was looked after every step of the way.

It took him a week to get back mind.

Noise restrictions? My arrse! Restrictions are exactly that - they restrict to what is necessary, they are not a blanket ban. As if the SeaKing was any noisier than the jet he flew in on. And the one after it and the one after that, etc.
If this was an ATC decision then my civilian colleagues at Stansted should be ashamed of themselves.

orgASMic; read post No 7.

My Comp-A from Cyprus was by Civair (Cyprus Airways) to Heathrow, final destination Gloucester. That was the most expedient method at the time, no mil flight back to UK until the Timmy Schedule the next day.

I can assure you that ATC do sometimes (emhasis sometimes) make these sorts of decision without onward/upwards referral.

Either way whoever did make this particular decision should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

A spokesperson for BAA Stansted commented.............................?

I doubt a civvy would understand what a Comp A is. Maybe time to change the terminology to Emergency Leave or something?

Maybe they were on tea break which takes priority over everything - to compromise, they could have put the SeaKing in the hold for 2 hours till they had finished - that would have been nice:D
I always said that BAA (and CAA) should have been on Maggies hit-list

A couple of years ago, I attempted to book a Comp A from Aldergrove to Stansted on a 230 Puma.
I was told by the airport operating authority that Mil ac are not allowed to use Stansted past midnight due to noise abatement rules. Having pointed out we were a helicopter and not an afterburning FJ we were still refused.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=175114

Commence throat lumps.