The morons on 121.5. Authorities please act!

[ShyTorque]

in Ireland we do practice pans without pushing the ptt button, you just have to demonstrate that you're doing it as part of your PFL, but you don't transmit. I'm surprised that this isn't a practice across the EU

So are you really required to say the phrase "Practice Pan" across the cockpit? I can't see the point of that at all. If required to demonstrate how you would make a real urgency call, surely saying "Pan Pan" x 3 would be more appropriate?

[Chesty Morgan]

Originally Posted by edmundronald

I'm a SLF. If some poor bastard in a single-engine prop with 100 hours and a Mark I eyeball gets lost in the UK and calls a practice pan, and recovers without anyone the wiser, you think he's polluting the frequency? Maybe YOU guys in heavies with a ton of nav equipment need a new frequency together with an OBLIGATION to answer within 10 seconds or lose your commercial license.

A practice PAN is not for really getting lost.

[Bealzebub]

I'm a SLF. If some poor bastard in a single-engine prop with 100 hours and a Mark I eyeball gets lost in the UK and calls a practice pan, and recovers without anyone the wiser, you think he's polluting the frequency? Maybe YOU guys in heavies with a ton of nav equipment need a new frequency together with an OBLIGATION to answer within 10 seconds or lose your commercial license.

Your first point is quite valid. Practice or real (and sometimes there is no distinction) that is part of the frequencies raison d'être. A new secondary universal frequency would be fine if that reduces the clutter. It doesn't really matter who has to make the change.

121.5 as part of the safety protocols, now needs mandatory monitoring. It is a safety net and provides a secondary layer of protection from PLOC events as one of its functions. It is the level of distracting and unnecessary babble that is frequently causing it be tuned out. When that happens the secondary protection is gone. This whole issue needs to be properly addressed by ICAO, and improvements and changes implemented as soon as possible. The system as it is, is no longer fit for purpose and hasn't been for quite some time. The poor situation is only exasserbated by the few who use it as a playground or arena. The facility needs to grow up, as do a few of its users.

[silvertate]

Originally Posted by MFALK

So a poor chap mistakenly calls Company on 121.5 and instead of politely telling him to switch freqs., an idiot goes "Go ahead.." so the original caller thinks he is speaking to Company and goes on with his requirements ...

Hold on a minute. Why would 'company' be listening on 121.5??

The last time I heard something similar - and an enraged Frenchman pilot shouting back - it was a prank call by a joe-public troll on the ground. They just thought it would be fun to wind up some pilots, and it worked. Unless you can be sure this was a pilot-to-company call on a frequency the company would not be using, you might have been trolled.

[wiggy]

Hold on a minute. Why would 'company' be listening on 121.5??

They wouldn't...but I doubt the "poor chap"/victim realised he was transmitting on 121.5 either.

I suspect I can't be the only one here who has dialled company freq up, not toggled it across from "standby" ..and transmitted...

[Cows getting bigger]

Unfortunately, it isn't just 121.5. Flying into Lisbon the other day there were numerous chummy exchanges between TAP pilots on a relatively busy approach frequency. Meanwhile, lo-cos constantly nagging for higher, faster, tighter whilst Nigel tells everyone that his company SOPS demand 140kts fully stabilised at 8 miles

What are we creating?

[NWCoast]

Originally Posted by Fly4Business

Isn't this over reacting? There was somebody joking on 121.5, ok, so what?

Thing is, this **** went on for a good five minutes.
I was heading down towards Italy, I do believe we were over the boarder between French/Rhein boundaries.
It was like a ******* kindergarten on speed.
Eventually had enough, went on and said "Alright, that's about *. enough of that eyh?"
Got a reply indicating that I was some sort of feline, but thankfully it went all quiet after that.

I just don't see the point, people do the whole "Gu-aaaaa-aaaard" routine even when the first station clearly states "XYZ {airline} 1234 - to groundstation, ON GUARD, insert transmission"

That YouTube thing pointing this out, unfortunately, served as inspiration for some.

[airjersey]

Originally Posted by Chesty Morgan

Where is he.....................where is he................................where is he.................................where is he ...YOU'RE ON GUARD...........there he is.

love it.....!

However, I agree this people dislplay a mental age of 5...wonder how they actually pass airline interviews.....

[flash8]

wonder how they actually pass airline interviews.....

Really? Well... anybody can act serious, mature and tick the right boxes for as long as is 'required' and then in actuality behind the scenes (when nobody important is watching) behave with breathtaking immaturity. It's a game. Act mature because it is expected (and obligatory) until you can get away with it.. and then act like an ass. Ironically, and as has been mentioned, these are the sort of folk that can well up their game when required and show an equal amount of talent and are far from unintelligent.

[Sir George Cayley]

So keeping a listening watch on 121.5 is a requirement and plays a part in PLOC?

I've thumbed through a few docs but can't find the Standard. Is it in ICAO, EASA, CAA or another regulatory publication?

And PLOC. Has technology, apart from SELCAL on iOS, come up with a solution? What about our SOPS? If company deem it necessary to have 121.5 on "box 2" could they have something about Ops Normal after x mins of silence in an otherwise busy volume of airspace?

I've also tried to research MORs about losses of contact to see if a FACTOR pointed towards a problem other than HF with, so far, no evidence.

[PENKO]

Let it go. Just let it go. So someone makes an animal noise on 121.5. The worst thing that can happen is an English male voice lecturing all of us that 121.5 is an emergency frequency yada yada yada.. Just let it go sir, 99% of us know what guard means, you are just feeding the trolls and setting off an avalanche of 'you're on guard toooooo' messages. And yes, you are on guard too.

[Bealzebub]

So keeping a listening watch on 121.5 is a requirement and plays a part in PLOC?

I've thumbed through a few docs but can't find the Standard. Is it in ICAO, EASA, CAA or another regulatory publication?

https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/de...ction-plan.pdf

http://www.icao.int/APAC/Meetings/20...%20-%20rev.pdf

http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Guarding_121.5_MHz

[maybepilot]

I am thinking about the mental state of the many 100s LoCo pilots who are paid by the hour and can't afford being sick.
Or how about those 100s pilots working through dodgy agencies that live and work in a social security and tax limbo and often even paying to fly?
Or I think about those english lever 8 folks who clear me for the localiser first and only after interception they clear me for the glide or start telling me about their "de-conflicting-un-controlled airspace service" stuff while I am descending through FL200 right over central UK with my heavy jet in IMC ; or about those who don't allow me to bring a yogurt to the same flight deck where I have a crash ax; or about those who can't wait to fine me if my hi-visibility jacket is undone during my walkaround just as I observe the LoCo pilot parked next to me standing in the rain with his headset on, supervising the refuelling leaving the other pilot alone on the flight deck with passengers onboard.

Suddenly a joke on 121.5 becomes almost a professional act when compared to where this industry is heading.

[wiggy]

So keeping a listening watch on 121.5 is a requirement and plays a part in PLOC?

Well it's a requirement in our Ops Manual that 121.5 should be guarded whenever practical, and shall be guarded in areas where interception is a possibility, so there's a few flying around who, yes, are are stuck with that as a requirement.

As far as Europe goes I guess it can now be said that interception has now been demonstrated as being a possibility over (at the very least) Hungary, France and the UK.

[Wageslave]

Is it beyond the wit of man (or the pockets of airlines) to develop a link to the transponder so that whenever 121.5 is keyed the transponder squawks accordingly? Shouldn't be too hard, surely?
That'll stop all but ground based and PPL nonsense.

Shy, you don't say "PAN PAN" across the cockpit for the very obvious reason that if you did have your finger on the tit as is all too possible you'd have just broadcast a real one, just as we used to say in the military before setting off practice emergencies, "For Exercise, ......".

A few well publicised prosecutions Europe wide would put an end to it too, I'd think.

[RHS]

I do have to say, that 90% of the stupidity I hear on Guard seems to be around the border between France and Germany, so interesting to hear that some of these transmissions aren't from pilots at all.

Heard some "where is he?....... Where is he?" antics on guard this morning, and couldn't help but think you sound like a complete moron, no doubt trying to impress your colleague.

Having said this, some of the children I went to flying school with, it would really not surprise me if they are the culprits.

[Superpilot]

Have heard this a couple times in recent months. One was a guy trying to tell operations that a passenger is going to miss the last connection of the day and needs to travel urgently. The response was something along the lines of we'll lay on a biz jet. To which the tyro responded by admitting he'd made a mistake and learned his lesson. Professionalism aside, it was a marvelous piece of education for the rookie who is obviously going to learn how to operate his radio better. And not a single soul perished that day!

[16024]

Plus 1 for Penko @ post #71.

Maybe the beardies can replace their sense of outrage with a sense of proportion.
And maybe the childish ones will stop when you stop going "On Guard!" like a stuck record when someone is trying to use the channel properly.
In 30 years I've never heard, or even heard of an occasion when a genuine emergency has been compromised by chatter, annoying though it may be.

...not a single soul perished that day!

[bugged on the right]

I have been guilty of calling the company on 121.5 but realised it very quickly by the lack of response. Usually when the other crew member changed frequency while I was not looking. Having heard the infantile transmissions along with some of the posts here I can only reinforce what Huck posted. Monkeys on the flight deck and other monkeys defending them.

[Genghis the Engineer]

As a UK based part time instructor...

(1) Practice Pan is a bloody useful tool for getting a student to take the exercise of making a mayday call or equivalent seriously, because they're suddenly talking to the big scarey outside world of aviation grown ups.

(2) UK D&D cell actively encourage its use, as it provides them with regular training and equipment testing.

(3) I know somebody who got badly lost, close to CAS, solo in an SEP, in marginal visibility. She called ATC, they asked her to change to 121.5, they vectored her to a known and safe location close to her destination. Throughout, the 2-way with D&D was being interrupted by Guard Police telling her and D&D cell off for being on guard!!!!

(4) Damned if I can see why anybody being actively controlled in national airspace needs to be monitoring guard either.

G