As they bill the airline for every intercept a few of my ex French mil colleagues reckon its a very tasty way of getting free flying hours by the FJ guys.

If that's the case then presumably the bill will specify a reason for the interception other than simply "Practice".

Having read this thread I perceive that many AT pilots think that it is their right to wander around Europe and beyond in a casual manner. I remind them that each country has a right to defend it's own airspace, and to police that airspace.

Having spent over 30 years as an Air Defender I had drummed in the rights and responsibilities of a QRA pilot. Although the procedures have been modified to cater for modern technology, the basic rules and procedures for interception, shadowing, intervention and engagement are unchanged.

Be there no doubt that the French take the sovereignty of their airspace very seriously. It would not be wise to ignore or disrespect the directions from a QRA Mirage.
Over the past 10 years operating both GAT and OAT across Europe I witnessed poor R/T and sometimes arrogance from pilots. I have heard some say, ”I’ll just continue on flight plan route” and make no attempt to contact a controller. In my opinion, not acceptable.

If the French were using civil traffic for squadron pilots training this would not be acceptable. If, however, they are QRA aircraft under qualified GCI Control they are policing their airspace. In other words, exercising their right.

Loss or comms
 

Sounds very much like an established procedure to me. With the proviso of continuing to establish contact.

I have only seen one bill DaveReidUK. It did not have the reason on it.

To be fair the reason was crew stupidity definitely in that case they had missed 2 FIR boundary frequency swaps and had 123.45 dialled into box 2 out of NL over Belgium and were intercepted over France.

I believe the c word was used quite a few times in the post incident debrief. you pair of , you stupid etc etc

both of them were given a photo copy of the bill which was in the region of 30K euro apparently it would have been more but the two FJ's were up in the air already so they only got billed for 30 mins flight time.

To be honest with the amount of nuclear power stations dotted around France pretty much every direction you can be pointing ends up with you being a threat to one installation or another.

beardy'
I said I think that you missed the point? OR, are you one of those who can'nt be bothered to regain contact?

Surely more a case of not being aware that contact has been lost? I've never come across a professional pilot who "can't be bothered to regain contact?" when aware that contact had been lost.

Of course there are other issues such as 121.500 MHz etc.

There are lots of potential reasons for a loss of contact, some the fault of pilots some not but "Can't be bothered to maintain contact". Come on! Thats just a stupid comment And yes, the comment on sovereignty is true for every nation but doesn't explain the massive discrepancy in number of interceptions

ShotOne,

You seem to have a downer on the FAF, is there a particular reason? As someone mentioned earlier, you only have to go to France to witness the number of armed police out on the strrets protecting their Liberté, égalité and fraternité.

The FAF do the same in the air. Their dispersed operations, number on alert and readiness is an indication of their determination. As I stated, if they choose to spend their money on policing their airspace, that is their right. If you don't like it you can always Flight Plan to fly round France. I'm sure your company would be over joyed.

As for , if the cap fits wear it. otherwise don't be so precious.

Many moons ago, I watched events unfold in Jeddah FIR when a Syrian airliner, bound for Jeddah, crossed the boundary from Jordan into Saudi and was late contacting Jeddah. It took only a couple of minutes for the Saudi Air Force scramble a couple of Lightnings from Tabuk and made the airliner land immediately.

Downer on FAF? Au contraire. But practicing intercepts on unbriefed unwitting passenger airliners IMHO constitutes needless risk

..and those ladling criticism and abuse on civil flight crews but not prepared to acknowledge the TCAS nonsense as an error are guilty of a glaring absence of fair-mindedness

How is this supposed to work procedurally? Presumably the interception is initiated by civilian ATC calling the air force who then scramble the fighter(s) – or do the air force intercept on their own initiative? Then during the interception, presumably the fighter leader is talking to his military control and/or to civilian ATC to tell them what he sees? Afterwards, do ATC or air force send a report to the interceptee's operator (Jet2 in this case) or national authority?

Would this be an incident that either BEA or AAIB, or both, would take notice of?

So *you* have proof that the Jet2 crew are at fault? As you are demanding evidence from others for their opinions, let's have yours too. :mad:

Old Lurker - If I explained it all I would get a visit from the 'grey sedan', there is not much open source stuff to refer you to but a search of the BBCs archives over the last 15 years highlights the basics. Rest assured a lot of people in lots of official organisations in the UK take an interest in the reports.

They were being tailed because it was such an old aircraft, the French believed it had been stolen from a museum! Apparently...

They were being called on the guard frequency for between 15 and 20 minutes. By the time they got intercepted we were to far out to hear the conversation. I do think it's poor practice from their PR department to not own up to their mistake but instead create confusion and try to point the blame at the French Airforce.

I wouldn't say the crew was at fault for not checking in on the right frequency, because I don't know what happened, but I would say the crew was definitely at fault for not monitoring the 121.500 freq on their no2 VHF box.

Or perhaps they were using box 2 for something else...

Something not involving using it to communicate with anyone, you mean ?

Obviously.