Gold Coast International Airport CTAF
 

Yesterday (a Friday) at 5 pm peak hour Gold Coast Airport was a CTAF. When i came in, there were a number of Virgin/Jetstar/Qantas flights mixing it up with other aircraft types. When i joined final I was number 4 on final with two Virgin's waiting at the holding point. all trying to sort themselves out on CTAF. Apparently like that again today.. It was due to controllers being on sick/covid leave.

First up, I find the controllers (GC Tower and Bris approach) excellent and i understand it is an Air Services issue, not a Gold Coast Airport issue. But the "safety" irony of the situation is something else. Gold Coast Airport Authority has taken the petty "safety" bureaucracy to the next level. To even visit the office, visitors now need to QR scan in, enter a s...t tonne of details so you can acknowledge you have read and understood the safety plan. (ie...see that big door to your left marked Emergency Exit/) before you can even speak to someone. And don't dare make a remark about it to the receptionist because she seems to have the "Don't make me call security" look always at hand. To access the gate that goes to the private hangars that are literally 25 meters away, you need an ADA card (renewed every 2 yrs), and and a AUA card (2 yrs) in addition to your ASIC. Pretyt much doubling up everything. The security has lately been pinging cars that have not put a yellow flashing light on top to drive those 25 metres....or maybe 150 metres to the far hangars.

Yet at the same time as the serious issue of no flashing light on top of your car is being enforced (because the car itself is obviously invisible) we have 737's/A330's separating themselves from each other and all sort of other traffic. When i came it all ran pretty smoothly with about 10 aircraft on the CTAF freq, but still it is not ideal. Maybe Australia in general needs a few less bureaucrats making everyone's life difficult in the name of "safety", and and a few more people actually on the tools, whatever the profession. The safety bureaucracy just seems to accumulate, the number of steps required to get anything done are added for "safety", and then never removed. And they all take it so seriously, as if there will be a terrorists attack if you have a twinkle in your eye as they take your ID photos. Rant done.

Do NOT get in the way of an Australian and their rules, regs, paperwork, permits and 'security.' If there's anything an Australian loves more than their beer is a good regulation or 10. A permit to scratch your arse.

Don’t forget the approved safety vest, which must be correctly worn airside.

Don’t the $20 million liability insurance for your fifty year old Cessna.

Don’t forget the airport is contactable 24/7, except when we close early every Friday afternoon.

I seem to recall this happened at Melbourne a few years ago and I think it was a Russian aircraft had to circle whilst waiting for an emergency on-call ATC member to arrive as they didn’t know how to operate in a CTAF.

Point of order, good sir. It is no longer just $20,000,000 liability, it is now $35,000,000 - and that's in US DOLLARS too. So what's that? Over $50M AUD with todays exchange rate, should you want to use the Goldy (Or Townsville, Longreach or Mt Isa, - the QAL airports) in your 700-kg Cessna 150...:ugh:

Not sure why you wouldn't want that liability insurance, all that has to happen is a fuel leak sourced from your vehicle that leads to a fire that burns down one or two 737s on the stand and you might be looking pretty shaky without it. Liability has nothing to do with what your asset is worth, its what the possible damage to other assets that could occur or injuries, airports have some pretty big ticket items floating around, I would want a minimum of $20mil liability insurance personally. The reason why some airports require it is that they don't want some poor bastard in his $2 Cessna not being able to pay for damage they caused.

Vehicles are about 1km from any rpt aircraft so would need to be a heck of a fuel leak. Fuel leak anywhere that ignites seems pretty unlikely. Also of course that signing the authority to use airside absolves GCA of any liability. Most insurance is $10m but gca requires $20m plus a clause that says on airport use not excluded. Don't worry...next year they will manage to find more embuggarances. Otherwise what's the point of all the shiny bummed safety people they have. But safety when actually flying at the airport? It's a ctaf mate...arrange it yourself.

Geez! I just landed, parked, slept, fuelled and took off. Nothing in ERSA about this crap.

CTAF procedures for gold coast are in your DAPS. Sure come in at a quiet time all good. But Gold Coast is a busy airport at peak times. Especially compared to Ballina that every rpt driver seems to think is an issue even though its a regional airport. Gold Coast as a ctaf in peak times is far from ideal and I would argue a far bigger safety issue than not reading the evacuation plan each time you visit the office.

But send in a Scoot 787 during CTAF and they will magically pull a tower controller out of their ar$e.

extralite. I think your unedited post was better! :E

All well and good to have a rant, as it’s justified, absolutely. But has anyone contacted CASA? ATSB and put in a confidential (REPCON) report/complaint? The squeaky wheel gets the oil….

F*** M* D*** :rolleyes: :ugh:

43 Inches - yes - some level of insurance, but f&*()ing war risk insurance? Beirut or Kiev yes, but Gold Coast??? I know State of Origin can get heated, but really!

Yeah folks, your Cessna 150 is gunna set fire to 2 x B737's :cool: FFS.............

Your ******* C150 won't get within 3k of a B737 at Gold Coast

All well and good in theory, 43”, but:

• you can’t actually obtain the insurance cover required by Gold Coast, Townsville, Longreach and Mt Isa, and
• the airport operator doesn’t enforce the requirement.

Just goes to show how disconnected from reality the airport operator is. Imposing the insurance requirement and not enforcing it is worse for the airport operator’s potential liability than not imposing the requirement at all.

(And the best insurance against liability is to be worth nothing…)

Yeah war risk insurance at an Australian domestic airport would be a bit of a laugh. But liability is pretty standard on all vehicle insurance contracts most car insurance and home insurance carries liability, if you think $35 mil for a moving object is steep, then why are you paying for $20mil for your static address home. Reason, if a surgeon type on their morning jog happens to trip over your poorly placed letter box and now is disabled and can't complete his 35 years as a Surgeon they might be seeking damages, just the world we live in.

Vehicle is anything that is mechanised and used to transport people or goods including planes, I could use the word conveyance or other more convoluted term if you wish, but I was alluding to any form of transport using the airport, including planes and helicopters, or boat or ship if these floods get worse.

I used the fuel leak analogy as a what if, you could include run-away hand swung prop that bread slices a Gulfstream or just pure landing bounce that ends up in the side of one of those parked jets waiting to take-off injuring the star center for the (insert football team here), or just a passenger happens to walk the wrong way into your taxiing Cessna and loses an arm when you had made a slight err of judgement on which taxiway to follow. None of these things have to happen at all regularly, they just have to be on the Radar of possible occurrences. Most of us are covered by our regular insurance for these things on a daily basis, obviously with the majority of us not knowing it. Airports just have higher risk factors so some might be more inclined to ask for higher coverage so that they are not left as part owners of liability debts.

By the way, read your insurance PDS, cheap insurance are worded very differently to the more expensive brands, esp around things like liability, flooding and fire esp if the result of simple pests like mice and insects.

A good example is rodent damage, expensive insurer "We don't cover damage by pest and rodents except if it is a fire caused by rodent activity" meaning they cover a house burning down due to mice chewing wires. Cheap insurer "we don't cover any damage caused by pests and rodents" meaning if the house burns down due to chewed wires, well you are on your own....

The end result of prior accidents involving pilots with innapropriate levels of insurance, well they get chased out of the country basically as civil cases mount vs them. Its the only option vs owing stupid amounts of money for the rest of your life.

Blimey 43, you live in a different world than me. I just don't give a rat's about any of that. Never have and its served me well. To the best of my knowledge I can lob into any airport in Australia in an un insured bug smasher and not break any rule whatsoever.

That's the reality for 99% of the community, you don't need this stuff, until, well you need it and then if you don't have it it's leave the country stuff. A large company that sees lots of passengers daily and sees risk coming out of every nook at cranny sees things very differently. Liability to large corps is literally a daily issue and the more they can shift the cases to another party the better for them. Think of the supermarket slippers and so on, owning a business that the public interacts with is a risky business financially. You are paying for it in many ways, from increased council rates, to 3rd party coverage on your rego, to everyday components of ticket prices to venues, public transport etc etc.... And the claims are there, every day... so its not invisible risk. Problem is if liability is moved to public avenues, you then pay for it through tax, which way would you prefer to pay? pay to use a service or pay for everyone to have accidents and a universal system..., I know which is cheaper in the long run. By the way liability claims are kept hush as the more public knows what they can claim, the more that fraud the system, and we do see the extremes on TV, but thousands everyday would pass through without much hasel.

BTW if you think I live some scared sheltered life, nope, not even close, I take risks, but calculated and make sure any that come close to the wind are appropriately insured. Whether it's medical insurance for risk taking activities (or daily ones) or the right business insurance for ventures I have undertaken, it prevents you wallowing in debt should the unlikely turn up and hit you hard. For instance my medical insurance has already paid back more than 10 fold what I've paid it, and for goodness sake use it, that's what its for. Good example is skimping on medical insurance as a pilot, then getting medivac from some outback location to a major city, there goes a good chunk of your yearly income without coverage.

Last thing, Cooly airport cares Nowt for you, they want that liability in case you damage something so that you can afford to pay for it, that's it. So it's a one sized stick to cover all occurrences. Once they have told you that you should have this at this airport, the judge deciding on damages will take that into account in what you should be able to afford, insured or not, that becomes a higher risk for the user.

"Leave the country stuff"? You have some very 'interesting' perspectives, 43.

So if I only have $5million liability insurance and do $10million damage, why would I leave the country or who can make me leave the country?

And are you saying you'll be getting the cover required by the operator to use Gold Coast, Townsville, Longreach and Mt Isa? You may have missed the bit where I said you can't actually get it.

Well it's either leave the country or drip feed some uncaring insurance company for the rest of your life. I assume you are not Skase or Bond who have vast offshore assets that can support that life overseas either. Or you can declare bankruptcy and lose everything you own anyway and not be able to get a loan or own/run a business for several years. Some chose to leave to avoid facing the courts over it, it has happened to a couple of pilots I know that have been involved in accidents, some quite notable.

With regard to the War Liability, that is the only part that I find is an issue, however it does cover if your craft is seized illegally and used to damage somebody elses property for some cause, which is not really a concern in Australia. It is what it is, but I agree is going to be hard to justify, until it happens. Legalities of who is paying for damages when something is stolen or seized to be used is complicated, especially when lots of money is involved, those who lost money, want it back, those that did it are dead, leaving the owner of the utensils involved.

So those pilots you know: presumably they had the assets of a Skase or Bond overseas to support their lifestyle, and never plan to come back?

You keep missing the bit about the required insurance cover for the QAL airports being unobtainable.

Only the war insurance is generally something that is not insured, liability for $25mil US is obtainable for anything, given a price. I suggest you speak to QBE or such and find out what it costs, airlines carry it, so I'm sure it would exist, I've never had to carry that personally so no idea, but liability insurance just depends on what the risk is, if its low the price is very low, as with travel insurance. Start saying you're a smoking 70 year old with a heart condition and travel will need to be self insured. Liability needs are such a low risk for the average punter than its really not that expensive, hence why it's tacked onto house insurance for virtually nothing.

It’s not just the amount (and, BTW, it US 35, not 25, million). You evidently haven’t read QAL’s requirements.

You’re the expert: Give QBE a call and ask them for a quote for cover that satisfies QAL’s requirements. Educate us all as to the answer. All I’ve been able illicit from brokers is side-splitting laughter.

I just read the leaflet I downloaded, says $25mil US for under 10,000kg. Is there a new requirement?

Yes, it’s all set out in QAL’s terms of use for their airports. The leaflet is toilet paper.

In any event, surely the amount of cover you have is determined by your risk assessment, not QAL’s. You could incinerate an entire passenger terminal full of people.

Reality is they make very little money from GA and would rather they not have to cater for it, but they can make it unviable for GA to afford it. Landing fees can be argued, where having appropriate insurance for the risk, with an army of corporate risk assessors behind them is hard to fight.

TBH most GA users would go to airstrips that the insurer would wince at should you claim damage from an excursion there, our fleet used to be insured for licensed aerodromes only, but we still flew to ALA's. I know of several situations many years ago that the insurers reluctantly agreed to only cover half of damages due to pilots going places they shouldn't be. One refused to cover a kangaroo hit because the aircraft did not do a low pass first to check for animals on the strip, even though another aircraft had landed 5 minutes prior. Pilot ended up out of pocket $25k or so.

Let's assume the worst. You lob in to Cooly when it's a CTAF, in your 700Kg, uninsured RV-7 and somehow manage to cause a brand new 787 to be written off. Cue an airline (or more specifically, their insurers) on the warpath to get their shiny big Boeing replaced, without costing them anything.

They'll naturally try to sue the poor RVator, but he's only got (had) his RV and a house, maybe a newish car if they're lucky. Afterall - if they had more $$, he wouldn't be in an RV, he'd be flogging about in a Cirrus... So, the absolute best they can get out of him is perhaps $1M AUD before he declares bankruptcy - and that's if he doesn't try to mortgage his house & sell his car to fund the defence of the lawsuit and then the insurer is going to get into a fight with the bank over who gets the house.

"Leave the country" stuff? Drip-feed a blood-sucking insurance company for the rest of your life? Nope. That ain't gonna happen (Click HERE if you don't believe me, look at the "Court-ordered restitution amounts"). They'll (probably) sue the owner, force them to cough up whatever they can, they'll in turn declare bankruptcy and the insurer will pay out on the Boeing and maybe claim on their re-insurance policies...Realistically though, if all you have is a house and car, they probably wouldn't even bother as their lawyers would cost more than they'd get from you selling your house anyway.

That case assumes only property damage, the other aspect is if somebody is injured, which is the case among the pilots I know that have had to leave Aus, and other countries. That's where civil cases get ugly and multiple claimants, just damaging a Boeing would be straight forward. Also declaring bankruptcy is not something you want to do lightly, it will effect everything you try to do afterwards financially based. And that's assuming you are not already financially well off, with family and independent, there's a lot to lose then.

So let us learn from you, 43”. How much public liability insurance cover do you have for everything you do?

Remember: You could stuff up while riding your push bike, swerve in front of a school bus which then plunges off a cliff when the driver fails to resist the reflex urge to avoid colliding with you. 40 kiddies in wheelchairs….

Car insurance is $20mil, house is $20 mil, that seems about the average. Company was on demand for the event or scenario. Last time I insured an aircraft I think it was about $5mil for basic.

But none for your push bike stuff up? You must have Bond/Skase levels of assets ready for your escape overseas.

I know what you are getting at but the law is on the pushbikes side, and pedestrian, nothing you can do on either can 'cause' the scenario you describe. Cars have to give way to bikes, and pedestrians on the road, regardless of whether they are following the rules. I've driven busses as well, the driver would make him and the company liable for the accident because he swerved and didn't stop straight. Short of you hijacking the bus and intentionally causing the accident you would be covered by the busses insurance if you were driving. Liability insurance is for your property causing harm to others, if you tripped someone over intentionally they could sue you yes. But short of having super powers nothing you could do generally with the chance of you at fault without it being criminal would have the chance of extreme expensive damage to others. Other things like leaving obstructions on roads that cause accidents is criminal so you would not really be worried about law suits rather jail time. Things dropped accidentally from vehicles that hit other vehicles is covered by the car insurance.

In the instance of swerving, you can have all the dash cam footage you want of the incident, but if the other object does not make contact and you crash it will be deemed your fault.

I just like the idea of two Virgins lined up.

I knew it would be the cyclists fault some how!

I really think you're stretching the truth with some of these claims and scare-mongering. Even if there is a personal injury claim involved, it is treated no differently to a property claim in civil litigation. "We blame you for us incurring these dollars, and we are suing you to recover these dollars..." it matters not why they blame you either covering someone's bills who got hurt or someone's property you broke...

Assuming you are fortunate enough to own your own home outright, and there is a lawsuit brought against you and you choose not to defend it or not re-mortgage your house to defend it or and the judgement goes against you (naturally it will if you don't defend yourself!) the absolute worst that can happen is your and your missus' "Joint Tenancy" will become "Tenants in Common", and the plaintiff will seek to recover the 50% of your home's value by giving your missus the chance to buy it, or if that fails, the property will usually be sold, with 50% of the proceeds then being given to your missus. The insurance company won't get the full value of the house just because one of you declares bankruptcy, nor can they try to go after your families assets or assets not in your name (or joint names) to try to recoup some of their costs. That's not how it works.

You will still be bankrupt, but you won't always lose your house, and at the expiration of the bankruptcy period (3 years now - I thought it used to be 7) you can start to pick up the pieces. Hell, you can even hold down a job during your bankruptcy and so long as you don't earn above a certain amount, you won't have to chip in any $$ to the bankruptcy trustee so you can pay back your wife for having to buy out your share of the family home!

They can't go after your family home, however if you have built up significant wealth including assets like boats and airplanes you will lose the lot. I'm not scaremongering at all, going uninsured with things like aviation can bite your ass very badly when it goes wrong. This is one downside to 'ride-share' type operations in that charter ops are covered by carriers liability act, which prevents a charter company from being sued in excess of x amount per passenger. Private or airwork ops you are not covered by said laws and therefore open to full compensation payouts to injured passengers and such. It's very important you know what you are covered for as I've already stated I know a number of pilots that have been bitten hard. If you want to rebuild your life from the bottom up again, go for it, declare bankruptcy, or just make sure you are covered for the reasonable eventualities. Personally I would operate into Cooly with what insurance I have, knowing that the likelyhood of causing $35mil USD of damage or starting a war a far off possibility. But going in uninsured is just silly as enough damage to ruin my lifestyle is definitely a possibility. The question is can they stop you from operating there, unless there is some PPR notice given I doubt it.

What a vindictive company can do if you wont pay up though is put a lien on your house so you can never sell it unless you cough up x dollars. But you would have to piss somebody off to get to that point, I know of several aircraft that have rotted away and scrapped because of such behavior. Intention is to basically ruin any chance you have to scarper with anything of value until you pay your debts.

Quote:

---

[C]harter ops are covered by carriers liability act, which prevents a charter company from being sued in excess of x amount per passenger.

---

Yeah nah.

An air carrier may be sued in any amount by a passenger. It’s just that if the passenger claims damages beyond the statutory limit, the air carrier will not be liable if it proves:

(a) the damage is not due to the negligence or other wrongful act or omission of the carrier or its servants or agents; or

(b) the damage was solely due to the negligence or other wrongful act or omission of a third party.

To put that another way, if the charter company’s negligence caused the passenger’s death or injuries, there is no cap on the company’s consequential liability.

You can google it. Try “Article 21 of the Montreal Convention”.

That's the same for any insurance, you won't be covered for negligent or illegal acts. Basically if you do something outside the box of your own volition that's not acceptable in anything insurance becomes iffy. If you were doing the right thing, but made a mistake that led to the outcome then you can be reasonably covered. Negligence being "A failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances." So as long as you were following the rules, ops manual and good technique, but something happened where you had a fade moment you would be covered. Insurance covers mistakes, not negligent or illegal behavior.

Neglect in a car could be knowing your brakes and tyres are worn past safe use in the wet, but driving in the wet anyway then causing an accident because you could not stop in the acceptable distance or skid into oncoming traffic. You are then at fault and negligent, and insurance could opt out as you failed in your duty to have a roadworthy vehicle and were aware of the deficiency. If your car was in good working order and by mistake you took the corner slightly too fast, but within acceptable limits, then you would be at fault but not negligent.

You crack me up, 43. A person’s liability due to negligence is precisely the kind of thing that the person’s insurance covers.

I do hope that the folks who read the stuff you post consume it with numerous hefty grains of salt.