ANALYSIS


Infringements are still running at a high level, so why are they happening? As Irv Lee discovers, a new survey has come up with some surprising insights


or some five years, pilots infringing regulated airspace have been able to contribute via an email survey to enhance understanding


of why such things happen. More recently, the survey has been used by other organisations responsible for other regulated airspace around the UK. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean


every infringing pilot has helped the understanding of why their incident happened; indeed, far from it. Each returned survey provides standard data about the pilot, aircraft and flight, along with free-text opportunities to gather the pilot’s thoughts on their infringement. More than 30 examples of the hundreds of such freeform reports can be found under ‘Pilot/Controller Reports’ on the FlyOnTrack website, flyontrack.co.uk. Each has been distilled into anonymous


‘one paragraph only’ easy reading. It has to be worth five or ten minutes of your time to look, because reading about someone else making a particular mistake might easily prevent you from doing the same. The first such analysis of 24 months of pooled survey data took place some three years ago, and the findings were reported in Clued Up soon after. Now, with infringement numbers in the UK stubbornly refusing to reduce from nearly 1,000 recorded incidents per year over all forms of regulated airspace, it was clearly time for further analysis of more recent pilot reports to check for new causes. In summer 2016, this review was


undertaken by two GA pilots (of very different backgrounds and qualifications) under the auspices of FASVIG, Future Airspace Strategy (VFR) Implementation Team, funded by the CAA. One place their


Breaking the boundaries F


formal report can be found is under the ‘Statistics’ tab on FlyOnTrack. As the whole report is so easily accessed, including input limitations, findings, recommendations and further thoughts, only a sample of quotes and extracts are covered here to provide a taster to encourage further reading. The study was certainly worthwhile – an additional factor did indeed emerge, that of distraction within the cockpit. More on that later. As the FASVIG report says, just as the


communication campaigns over the years have helped to reduce the problem of drink-driving by highlighting the devastating effects on third parties, it’s time to do the same for infringements. GA needs to get ahead of the game and highlight similar messages for infringements. While the rigorous training and


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Autumn/Winter 2016 CLUED UP 27


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