Unable to contact ATC over Africa
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Originally Posted by 411A
Put on more fuel, flight plan for a lower altitude, and let the low fuel guys duke it out for the cruise altitudes desired.
Works for me...
Works for me...
Pegase Driver
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" Expecting a lot from nothing is generally a frustrating experience.."
(Oscar Wilde I believe )
A bit of ( central ) African ATC explanations for those that still believe there is a " lot" down there. ( These are bits from existing facts , taken from various African countries )
Average salary of a Controller 150 USD / month , with lows a far as 45 USD/month.
Everyone has a second job to pay the bills,.
Often the second job is more important (i.e brings more money)
The only ATC training received is often the initial one, sometimes 30 years ago.
Civil war or political unstability change some priorities in life.(e.g. if someone is shooting with real bullets on your street at night, you might skip going to do the night shift )
Salaries are sometimes not paid for up to 6 months .
Controllers that do complain about either social of technical issues are simply fired.
Technical equipment fails, and there is no spares or no technician to repair it.
When air condition fails, most electronic equipment fails. Sometimes remain inop for years.
I can go on for a page more , but you get the picture.
Now your Airlines pays a lot of $$$ to overfly those countries . Maybe they should put pressure and ask where the money goes. Because it is certainly not going to ATC .
The only things IATA has done visibly so far , was to establish the Broadcast procedure and the lateral offset.
An attempt to cure the symptoms , but leaving the main desease untouched : corruption .
Flying above Africa today , is a bit like buying a diamond : enjoy the magic moment but do not ask too many questions.
(Oscar Wilde I believe )
A bit of ( central ) African ATC explanations for those that still believe there is a " lot" down there. ( These are bits from existing facts , taken from various African countries )
Average salary of a Controller 150 USD / month , with lows a far as 45 USD/month.
Everyone has a second job to pay the bills,.
Often the second job is more important (i.e brings more money)
The only ATC training received is often the initial one, sometimes 30 years ago.
Civil war or political unstability change some priorities in life.(e.g. if someone is shooting with real bullets on your street at night, you might skip going to do the night shift )
Salaries are sometimes not paid for up to 6 months .
Controllers that do complain about either social of technical issues are simply fired.
Technical equipment fails, and there is no spares or no technician to repair it.
When air condition fails, most electronic equipment fails. Sometimes remain inop for years.
I can go on for a page more , but you get the picture.
Now your Airlines pays a lot of $$$ to overfly those countries . Maybe they should put pressure and ask where the money goes. Because it is certainly not going to ATC .
The only things IATA has done visibly so far , was to establish the Broadcast procedure and the lateral offset.
An attempt to cure the symptoms , but leaving the main desease untouched : corruption .
Flying above Africa today , is a bit like buying a diamond : enjoy the magic moment but do not ask too many questions.
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If you cruise that long without comms, surely you had 126,9 in your second box, you must have heard traffic. Did you quiry any broadcasting station if they experienced the same problem? If yes, that would mean a black-out of black africa
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Nicked Antennas
It's not just in Africa that antennas get nicked. When I was a junior engineer working for Decca many years ago I rolled up at our development DVOR transmitter at Biggin one morning to find it shut down. Some cretin had shinned up the mast for the nearfield monitor anntena, hacksawed through the U bolts and made off with the antenna and about 20 metres of cable. Luckily it wasn't the official transmitter for the field. The same mast held one end of a back up NDB antenna which has this been running and they grabbed hold of it would have given them something to remember.
I hate to confirm a stereotype, but it happened to me as well at Liverpool in 1982. Somebody stole the receiving antenna off the roof of a building on the perimeter. It was late at night and quiet. First we knew was Manch on the phone saying that the Air Bridge Merchantman was calling tower and getting no response. He was, by the way, out of sight on the north airport, then still in use for cargo and pax handling.
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ATC Africa
Many years ago a very good chum of mine, and a Regional (Africa) Lead for the largest BIZAV association (NBAA) was one of my speakers at our NBAA Int'l Operators Conferences. He started by saying
"Ladies and Gentlement, Africa and Air Traffic, it's not all the Dark Continent, we have airways, we have airports, we have navaids, we have radar, we have radio, they may not work, but we have them!.
I have been in and out of the Dark Continent since 1969, and diddly squat has changed, just more folks airborne talking to more folks. Even ASECNA can't seem to get thier act together.
IATA will do nothing. Just look at the mess (bottomless) pit of money that is MMA in DNMM
"Ladies and Gentlement, Africa and Air Traffic, it's not all the Dark Continent, we have airways, we have airports, we have navaids, we have radar, we have radio, they may not work, but we have them!.
I have been in and out of the Dark Continent since 1969, and diddly squat has changed, just more folks airborne talking to more folks. Even ASECNA can't seem to get thier act together.
IATA will do nothing. Just look at the mess (bottomless) pit of money that is MMA in DNMM
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on the ground
I was in a tower in a well known oil rich nation in Africa doing an inspection on behalf of a well known airline who wanted an opinion of the airport that they had just started operating to.
I wanted to check the conformance with an Annex 10 requirement for ATC monitoring of the navaids as one part of the inspection. Did they do it? Yes of course, er, well can I hear the tones please. Lots of dust on the switch and in the off position made me suspect that it had not been used for some time.
When the radio gave a great big flash, and the cables caught fire down the main cable duct in the tower, I concluded that sometimes it is best left in the off position.
Not the biggest issue in the inspection, the usual stuff of keeping the bovines off the runway, trying to get the ILS at the right end of the runway in the AIP, requesting that they did not use yesterday's QNH and so on.
I wanted to check the conformance with an Annex 10 requirement for ATC monitoring of the navaids as one part of the inspection. Did they do it? Yes of course, er, well can I hear the tones please. Lots of dust on the switch and in the off position made me suspect that it had not been used for some time.
When the radio gave a great big flash, and the cables caught fire down the main cable duct in the tower, I concluded that sometimes it is best left in the off position.
Not the biggest issue in the inspection, the usual stuff of keeping the bovines off the runway, trying to get the ILS at the right end of the runway in the AIP, requesting that they did not use yesterday's QNH and so on.
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126.9
On a recent flight "into Africa", I was told by my collegue the captain, that IFBP on 126.9 was quote" for the olden days, before TCAS". (This is a guy who is a Cpt on a long haul scheduled airline.) I mentioned the amount of traffic over HSSS and did the calls myself. ( We listened to and watched on TCAS a near miss that day over Port Sudan.
The moral of the story is don't think that everybody is going to make 126.9 calls, even your five star airlines, and don't trust African controllers.
The moral of the story is don't think that everybody is going to make 126.9 calls, even your five star airlines, and don't trust African controllers.
Pegase Driver
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I was told by my collegue the captain, that IFBP on 126.9 was quote" for the olden days, before TCAS".
Look at the recent 737NG Collision in Brazil, or the Hawker jet collision last August over California.
The "Good old days" are in fact exactly what you have today over large parts of Africa....
Last fall, inbound to Brazza, overhead and talking to Kinshasha Control, I counted 8 flights on frequency and nary a TCAS symbol. At FL100 and TCAS looking BELOW! No transponder, no TCAS, and the locals seem not to like transponders. Or cannot get them fixed.
That said, we had no problems with contacting various control agencies, not that it mattered, IMHO.
GF
That said, we had no problems with contacting various control agencies, not that it mattered, IMHO.
GF
Join Date: Dec 2003
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Afi Rvsm
We certainly know of "agencies" pushing for the introduction of RVSM in this region, however, IFALPA are insisting on the full compliance of ICAO Docs 9574 and 7003 before it will accept this being implemented here. One requirement of "reliable two-way comms" we know will take ages to sort out in this region so I doubt whether we'll see it implemented here too soon.
Billy
Billy
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Always makes me laugh when certain African ATC want to know your aircraft's registration... I suppose that's so that they can send your company the bill for the fine service they've been providing to you ?! 
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1300 miles and lucky enough not to talk to ATC... believe me.. that's as safe as it gets... stay a couple of hundred feet high/low... a mile or two right of tack.. broadcast on 126.9... avoid the build ups... you have TCAS... if ATC start giving you cr#p about what to do...talk to the Russian a/c directly... don't believe anything he tells you... and work around him... welcome to the dark continent...
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Surprises me that someone would want to solely rely on TCAS or solely rely on ATC, for that matter. Use everything you have - your own common sense, a pair of good ears on the right frequency, tcas and ATC, and most importantly your eyes. Isn't that pretty basic airmanship? No matter how fancy the equipment or stringent the procedures, let's never forget the basics...
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Situational awareness over Africa (while in cruise) is something that dog-tired crew sometimes let slip. ATC will be of little assistance at the best of times, and will have NO idea if anything non-standard occurs as the language barrier is huge. We all duck around weather without (sometimes) even informing the irritation on HF that we loosely refer to as ATC, and thus have to have a firm picture of weather, traffic, adjacent airways, terrain etc.
We frequently end up talking to no-one except ourselves, and as Billy says, thank goodness for the requirements for the introduction of RVSM...
Review collision avoidance procedures in the IFBP area as detailed in the Jepp text pages (different to that detailed for oceanic areas), drink lots of coffee and make the 126.9 events part of the crew's IFE. Play a game called "I know who's lights those are that's approaching" as opposed to "who the hell is that?"
We frequently end up talking to no-one except ourselves, and as Billy says, thank goodness for the requirements for the introduction of RVSM...
Review collision avoidance procedures in the IFBP area as detailed in the Jepp text pages (different to that detailed for oceanic areas), drink lots of coffee and make the 126.9 events part of the crew's IFE. Play a game called "I know who's lights those are that's approaching" as opposed to "who the hell is that?"
infront of us