thank God the Judges at Solihull MC are being paid sufficiently generous wages not to have these thoughts cloud their judgement.

I think he only had 2 minutes left where he misdialed the frequency. And in the muck, that is really not the time to play around with COMM switches or your transponder.

Ok so over to lost comm procedure :

Agreed but when you are visual at 1.3 nm final at 600 ft AGL and there is a Dash 8 lined up on the runway wouldn't you go around ? You know you can get visual at 600 ft AGL and that they have you on radar. In a hold at 2500' over BHX you would have plenty of time to squawk 7600, play with the dials, contact approach again, etc...

Yes I agree.

It is a mystery how he didn't see (?) the lined up aircraft.

BTW here is an interesting bit of history on the without-AOC pilot.

Talking about the BHX incident, I've just read the AAIB report (duplicate link) and have very mixed feelings about it.

Yes, there were errors made by the pilot but IMHO the investigation didn't pull up anything reckless or totally negligent, just the usual causal chain of small events and circumstances that all contributed towards the eventual outcome.

There are four safety recommendations in the report, all aimed squarely at NATS, BHX airport and the CAA, not our unfortunate pilot. The AAIB came up with several possible reasons why he might have had difficulty seeing the aircraft holding on the runway short of the displaced threshold, so you have to assume that he *didn't* see it, for one or more of the above reasons.

There is a lot of ambiguity surrounding radio failure procedures in the UK (and the rest of the world), which is touched on in the report itself. Do not underestimate how much a "simple" failure like losing comms can add to the workload of flying an approach, especially a last-minute non-precision one. Things that seem blindingly obviously in retrospect are very easily missed.

All-in-all, I think he was a bit hard done by. He was a company Chairman, so maybe this was a sort of "means tested fine"...

This is why I think entering the hold and gaining some breathing space is by far the best course of action.

The incident probably started to happen when he didn't read his notams, flew three relatively long sectors on his own, and obviously screwed up the approach. Seeing 177kts at less than 2 dme and a 1700ft/min rod, he should really have been going around regardless of frequency selection. Throw in a perceived radio failure and any responsible pilot should have been entering the hold to try and fault find and get his brain in gear. He got himself into a corner and had neither the experience or airmanship to take control of the situation.

Mind you looking at his NDB approach can you imagine what his hold would have looked like!

I found the section on TBM's training a bit lacking. Under 3 hours IFR. Fairly poor show for a High Perf aircraft aimed at owner pilots. And I doubt this guy would have shone given his ineptitude here.

I'm guessing it's just an avatar. I saw it yesterday and wondered what happened but he has been active since then, which would suggest he hasn't been banned. He's a prolific poster with a lot of useful info to impart so it would be a loss to the forum if he wasn't able to contribute.

You cannot ban Mad Jock probably a misunderstanding in his spelling also being a VIP from Scotland he has diplomatic immunity from such things.

He needs educating on matters regarding EASA and FAA but apart from that he is alright and says it as it should be said (If you can read his writing :E

Pace

True. But I've seen (and continue to see) the QAR traces of heavy jets flown by pairs of 10,000hr+ professional pilots who go on to land off much worse approaches than that. They also have the benefit of high quality recurrent training and checking, far above that normally available to the average GA pilot. They also have enforced stabilised approach criteria and an alleged monitoring pilot - what could go wrong?

Yes. But how far is he from the average? How would most pilots with his level of experience and training cope with the situation in question, especially at the end of a long day?

From what I read, and the AAIB are normally fairly thorough, it wasn't the aviation equivalent of someone setting out across the English Channel on a Li-Lo, it was a guy getting maxed out and making some poor decisions but not actually killing anyone or breaking anything. Debriefing: yes; extra training: yes; censure: maybe; prosecution? Not really appropriate in my view...

Totally agree!!! There were mistakes made all round on this one by ATC too and I have a feeling this guy was used as a scapegoat!

Pace

The AAIB and CAA Prosecuters have totally different aims, and their reports / actions within reason will reflect those aims. To therefore read an AAIB report, and deduce whether a prosecution was warranted or not, is IMHO, a mistake.

The prosecuters have to make their case, and I am pretty sure someone flying an expensive aircraft around Europe can also afford a pretty good "brief" to defend himself.

The Rougham incident (which I saw) ditto - the AAIB report hardly reflecting the "nature" of the takeoff. The fact that the CAA were also, co-incidentally, on hand at the event wouldn't have helped any potential defence (not that I can see there was much).

Finally, CAA prosecutions are influenced by past "form" - maybe certain of those prosecuted were already treading on thin ice with the CAA :oh:

NoD

Wasn't the aircraft that overflew the Q400 at BHX the same one that had its prop chained up/prevented by moving by the airport authority?

Seem to remember reading something along those lines on here...

I am never really sure exactly what sort of "training" is envisaged by those who call for "extra training" to prevent mistakes.
Human error is endemic in human nature.

These are not CAA prosecutions but successful CAA prosecutions. They no longer mention the cases that they lose.

Re the Birmingham incident. I can assure you that there is not any more to it than meets the eye despite some of the speculation on this thread. The pilot genuinely believed he had a comms failure and had suffered one on the same aircraft previously.

It appears to me that one of the reasons he was prosecuted was because he holds a foreign licence and the CAA had no other sanction against him. Had he held a UK licence he might have been prosecuted or he might have received a conditional caution involving a requirement for further training or a flight test.

It is somewhat surprising that the other aircraft was given permission to enter the runway bearing in mind the proximity of the TBM on the approach. Why didn't the TBM pilot see it? Look again at the AAIB report. The other aircraft was on the runway starter extension. It is a different colour from the rest of the runway. There was a light coloured aircraft on a light coloured piece of runway. The TBM pilot was under a high workload, emerging from IMC, with apparent comms failure and would have been looking ahead at his touchdown point on the main (darker section) of the runway. That section of the runway was clear.

Please note that he was charged with and pleaded guilty to failing to maintain a proper radio watch and landing on a runway occupied by another aircraft. He was not charged with either reckless or negligent endangerment.

Its a prime example of overload. We have done this to death before. Under a lot of stress a pilot will go into overload and normal parts of the brain shut down.
I remember one instructor flying back IMC in a PA28 in atrocious weather!
He claimed he could hardly remember his name when he landed.
You have a graphic portion of the brain which takes in visual information and and deals with it. Bit like a Graphics card with on board memory.
You have a storage part of the brain.
Have you ever driven a car and been deep in thought and realised you have driven five miles without remembering one corner?
We all have different on board memory to the graphics portion so some do better than others while others have to rely more on the storage portion!
The more learned stuff in the storage portion the more the visual side is freed up.
Overload the visual side and the lot stutters and freezes.

Hence more training and sticking info into storage will help him in future.
But a big fine and a prosecution will help the CAA

Pace

"Extra Training" could start with NDB approaches, the report mentions he had not performed one for 4 years prior to this incident. No surprise he cocks it up when he has to do one in anger.

I bet the way the pilot "performed" in his interview with the CAA set some parameters for what course of action they decided to take.
"I did everything right, I did nothing wrong, and would do the same again" might not be the right way to go in all cases.

Yes, but how can the CAA administer this when he did not hold a UK Licence?
And how often does he come to the UK? Was it a One Off. Will he be back again?
I suspect they considered it but, in reality, it is just not practical.

On a really basic level, there is training to competence in a particular endeavour or manoeuvre, e.g. the actual flying of NDB approaches. Then there is planning, (self) briefing and (self) monitoring, with the awareness that mistakes are likely to be made but are mostly detectable and correctable before they become critical. All can be taught.

You can be trained to recognise the symptoms of overloading, so that you can prioritise the most important tasks (normally avoiding unexpected ground) and hopefully move yourself and the aircraft into a regime where you recover some of your mental capacity, e.g. throwing a bad approach away and going somewhere safe to think about the next steps.
Yes, but that doesn't mean we can't work around it. Errors are endemic in virtually any field you can name - it's the methods you use to nullify the effects of them that are important.

That would not be useful, since nobody who flies for real (outside the FTO and IR testing environment) flies NDB procedures with an ADF.

One flies them with a GPS, either flying an overlay approach, or in the OBS mode. In the TBM case, the lateral accuracy of the final approach suggests he was using the latter, but mis-set the inbound track to the runway track instead of the IAP track (yeah, I've "never" done that myself... and it "never" makes one wonder if one's autopilot tracking null is set right ;) ).

Flying holds with modern kit is a piece of cake - even if the kit cannot fly them by itself.

I think I've only flown two NDB approaches outside of training (although a lot in training!) but I would use the real thing just for the practice and satisfaction. On the G1000, which is what he had in the TBM one just waits until one is on the inbound course then line up the track dot with you ADF arrow and you can fly it very accurately.

Using just an old RMI one will always wiggle a bit because you have no way of knowing your exact track at a given time.

On the subject of training/licence sanctions does anyone know what the FAA does (if anything) in the case of a pilot flying abroad who commits an aviation violation?

The FSDO in Brussels would be the authority to address when initiating a certificate action. I would recon them to be pretty responsive if the UK CAA filed a report with a request for appropriate follow up. I don't think they did that in this case.

On the other hand, if a fine is all the CAA is after, then they don't really need FAA involvement. Wouldn't have hurt to send the FSDO a little note, though.
Would you see a suspension on Mr. Visentini's FAA record ?

On a separate note, I think it would have been fairer to swap Mr. Visentini's and Mr. Turton's fines.

I can't imagine the CAA is doing this for the cash raised through fines. The amounts quoted here wouldn't fund the Belgrano canteen for more than a week!

Presumably their actions are meant to be a deterrent to bad behaviour, and I suspect a lot of the deterrent is non-financial. One of these prosecutions took place four years after the offence. That's a long time not to sleep at night, especially if the prosecution might trigger litigation.

Just commenting in general: I know nothing of the specifics here.

Each ICAO contracting State is obliged to persecute and prosecute a national of that State, on behalf of another State in whose airspace an alleged offence was committed.

In practice, this works less than thoroughly (obviously what "thoroughly" means varies according to which end you are on :) ) not least because different States have different ideas of what evidence is required to have somebody hung drawn and quartered.

No doubt if you did something dodgy over Angola, they would ask the UK CAA to have your family raped and executed. The CAA won't do that because rape is illegal (even within marriage, in these enlightened times) and the death penalty was abolished in the 1950s (much to the derision of Lord Denning :) ).

In 2003 I busted one of the French power station TRAs, and the evidence the Frogs (DGAC) delivered showed I was under a radar service at the time, yet they said nowt. until 5 months later. Also the TRAs were not notamed, and to top it they did not appear on any charts for another year or two. The CAA just sent me a stiff letter and that was it. Apparently the French do this sort of thing quite a lot.

I don't think the CAA is especially limited in what they can do to a foreign pilot, relative to what they can do to a UK one. They can bust both, and they can turn over the aircraft of both to check for any dangerous maintenance (lack of).

Whether the CAA would have asked the FAA to take certificate action against the pilot would depend on their view of what the FAA would think of the UK procedures implicated in that incident. It's quite possible that the CAA decided that a prosecution was simpler :)

16 prosecutions in year - really? doesn't really seem that many. Out of interest is the CAA v Jackson the one following the Gazelle shunt?

Edited to say having checked yes it is and when you read this it makes the penalty surprising:-

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...EW%2011-09.pdf

One reason for apparent lack of consistency is the rarity of prosecutions, so no national guidelines.

The other is that fines depend not only upon the seriousness of the offence but also impact on the defendant. People with greater resources pay higher fines.

The guy in the powered kite thingy had a really good quality camera, i wonder what it was, I use a Drift 170 action cam which is supposed to be the best but is nowhere near the quality of the kite guys, i gotta get one of them .

With car driving it is now becoming more commonplace to offer the driver who has broken a speed limit the choice of accepting a fine and the proverbial 3 points or completing a speed awareness course and avoiding the fine and 3 points.
Something similar could be carried out with flying?

Pace

I know of one person who was offered something like this. What he did was very, very naughty but he was told to take training and that was as far as it went.

Not all infringements and pilot errors are MORed, not all MORs result in prosecutions (compare this list to the UK CAA list of MORs published on the website - infringed airway, infringed LTMA) and not all prosecutions go in favour of the CAA.
But even this small list has (in the absence of the full facts) the appearance of a lottery.
Remember, none of us are perfect. The long arms of the National Authorities is only one of the risks we face every flight.

Looking at the colour quality of the shot, and the way it jitters (slightly) when moved fast: GoPro HD

I have both it and the Drift you have, and no contest, GoPro has much better quality :)

Not as good as a though :)

In reality, much video shooting is spoilt by haze - unless you fly low enough to "get noticed" :)

Bob UpandDown

There has to surely be a distinction between a violation as a result of bad airmanship, overload, etc and a pilot with all his senses intact doing something which he knows to be against the law?
The first should not involve punishment as Mal intent was not there.
Yes it should involve re training but you should only punish someone for knowingly doing wrong.
Prosecutions are expensive all round and really should be the last port of call.
Education is a far better route as it will help rectify even those who knowingly do wrong.
I can remember in my youth doing something crazy with a car and being stopped by the police. The officer could have thrown the book at me but instead chose to have a chat about the implications of what I had done and finished by saying that he had done me a favor and to only do him the favor of taking in what he had said.
That encounter remained with me all my life and although I did other things with cars :E I never did that again.

Pace

Pace - I agree. Having read through the cases for example I can see very little excuse flying an aircraft when you know it to have been grounded. The act its deliberate and a willful flagrant of the law.

Where a "professional" makes a mistake, it is more difficult. Did the standard of airmanship fall below that which should be reasonably expected? Where the consequences to have risked harm to others? What actions did the pilot take after the event?

I think these are some of the questions that the CAA should consider before prosecuting.

Many professional bodies "deal" with the discipline of their own members in the first instance unless a third parties insists on the matter being referred to the Court and they have the ability to censure and impose fines. In many cases this would seem a far better way for some of the cases to have been dealt with.

Pace & Fuji
I agree with you.
The fact that not all infringements in the list of MORs end up on the list of prosecutions means CAA must been making a decision over who they take all the way.
Even very, very experienced and diligent pilots make mistakes. On the other hand (and I have seen this many times) even very, very experienced and highly qualified pilots can exhibit flagrant disregard for good airmanship. The former don't even need to be told, they know they have made a mistake and that is enough.

I can see the fines being means tested, although they are massive on the scale of say motoring offences. Even killing a whole bus queue of people would not get you a fine the size of some of these (but might get you locked up).

However what concerns me is not the size of some of the fines but the fact that a prosecution took place.

I wonder if the CAA policy of telling people that the costs will be X if they plead G or 5 times X if they plead NG (and lose) is paying big dividends?

Most GA pilots are relatively skint and if facing say a £10k fine+costs they will plead G regardless.

In my XR3i days ;) I used to plead G simply because the solicitor told me that in this case the police want to teach me a lesson (this was pre CPS) and if I want to plead NG I will need to get a solicitor from outside the area.
No way would I fall for that today because I can afford a £10k hit (obviously so, flying an IO540-engined plane :) ) but I think most people would.

Would any lawyer here have an idea of what % of cases the CAA lose?

I also wonder what pleas were entered in those all-successful prosecutions?

It says it in the document. All successfully prosecutions were guilt pleas.

It suggests to me that only cases where the caa is guaranteed to win do they prosecute.

Everyone who ever drove an XR3i was always guilty anyway...

Back, must have used a rude word somewhere.

Haven't used anything that wouldn't be used on BBC radio Scotland lunch time radio for a while.

Anyway 3 risk assements done, and all the training paper work up to date...

I haven't got any choice in the matter. Flown 6 of them in the last week with no AP down to mins 2 of which the viz dropped after the approach ban. Just with a two needle RMI worked a treat every time with a constant decent approach.

Jock, you never spell your rude words correctly, so that can't have been the reason.;)

Dublin Pilot

Errr no. There are certainly cases where the CAA lost.

I wonder how many of them there were.

There certainly seemed to be mostly plead guilty in that list.

Thank LA.

So the implication of that is that the CAA never won a case in court that they had to fight.

The person either pleded guilty or the CAA lost the case.

I take this from the fact that there were no successfull prosecutions in the list other than with guilty plea.

Like MJ, I wonder how many cases the CAA lost? Do you know, or even have an idea of it?