QR777 not obeying North Atlantic Tracks ?
 

Just saw on the "radar" site that ends in 24, that QR777 on March 25th is crossing the assigned North Atlantic Crossing tracks. Are they allowed to do so on their DOH-MIA leg?

They're doing it secretly hoping nobody will notice, least of all ATC. But now that you've stumbled across their dastardly plan I guess the game's up. ;)

It's unthinkable that a professional crew would do such a thing unless it was properly approved. If I had a $ for every time I saw errors on FR24 I'd be very, very rich.

HT you tease....

Dutch - almost certainly following an approved (with ATC) "Random" Route.

It's not that uncommon to cross the tracks, or use part of a track.

It's a long time since I was at Oceanic , but it was always possible to route off the Track system, as long as separation was maintained on the random track & between the random track & the organized tracks. I would have thought that this possibility still exists (subject to these provisos). Or, have things changed ?
In any case, I am certain that pilots would not take it upon themselves to "ride roughshod" through the tracks.

I know, it's one of my many bad traits! It comes from the cynic in me which reads an insinuation rather than a genuine question. :\

HT: Question was really genuine, never saw such a crossing before. However amazes me that it's possible to do "random" on organized North Atlantic tracks.

Dutch Mill

No need to be amazed. All that ATC is. there to do is to separate the traffic from each other. They achieve that in obvious ways &, over the NAT, Organised Tracks is one of them. If a particular a/c requests a routing outside of these tracks & there is no conflicting traffic, than it can happen. That is not to say that this can be accomplished easily, or on a frequent basis.
These days, it might not be as easy to do as in the past (with the greater levels of traffic now); & it might be that there are heavy restrictions on it. As I often say, things have changed since I was there & it might be banned altogether, for all I know !

But: ..... accross atlantic, the radar coverage is zero. Running random tracks based on radio transmitted tracks seems pretty risky.

Yes, but there are other ways of providing separation. Even with Procedural Separation, if one random track a/c is above (or below) the other a/c on the tracks that it crosses, then it is quite safe to allow it to fly on that random track. What tends to screw this type of operation up is the sheer amount of traffic at all the usable Flight Levels; so that attractive Flight Levels are simply not available for the Random Track a/c to use. This will be compounded by the Random Tracker cutting across more than one track during its journey.
In these circumstances, ATC will be particularly mindful of the density of one directional traffic (eg. the Westbound Flow) & will not sanction a "one off" Random Tracker. But, if they have vertical separation (& it can be maintained without adversely affecting the a/c complying with the Organised Tracks), then why not allow allow random tracking - on a very limited basis !

No problem though, I've reported the observation to navcanada.ca, in charge of Gander Oceanic FIR, and asked for their response. Flight QR777/25MAR DOH-MIA.

I'd be interested to hear their response, unless your observation is already in the round tray!

HD: I'll keep you posted!

Don't forget that Oceanic ATC have access to ADS B - in the same way that FR24 have. So, they should have been aware of any unauthorised departure from required procedures. Nevertheless, I very much doubt that a professional flight deck crew would make an unauthorized deviation of this sort & get away with it !!!

Interesting. I hadn't realised that satellite-based ADS-B monitoring was in widespread use yet (most of the Atlantic being out-of-range of ground-based stations).

Do you know long that's been the case ?

No, Dave. You are probably right. I have no real experience of the ADS B usage - I just assumed that this was the case ! Oops.
I bow to superior knowledge.
Nevertheless, I don't believe that anything untoward happened in this case.

I visited ATC in Auckland a good few years ago - possibly late 90s - and they had a "radar" display showing the Pacific from Japan across to western USA and down to NZ and Australia. How it worked I do not know but there were a good few aircraft showing and I wonder if that was some sort of ADS-B via satellite or something....

The OTS is just a bunch of random tracks. They are just today's approved random tracks. I've done a few crossings at the end of the herd and been cleared a random route. Our flight planning computer has different ideas than what Gander and Shanwick came up with 12 hours earlier.

ADS-C has been required between FL350 and FL 390 in the NATS airspace since February 2015.

If a specific FL is allocated for a random track and that FL is exempt from the designated tracks I don't see what the problem is.

Long been practiced and permitted, especially by those routing in a different direction, not Western Europe to Eastern North America. How do you think the Keflavik to Tenerife holiday flights manage ?


Random Tracks were commonly used as well by Aeroflot from the Soviet Union to Cuba, which would cross the tracks at an angle. Contrary to some belief, these were all properly flight planned and complied with Shanwick. I am guessing the Qatar flight mentioned may have been on a somewhat similar routing.