[Flintstone]

I think we all know it is/was happening but I personally have never witnessed anyone doing it.

I have.

I've met/overheard/observed people over the last couple of decades in hotels, FBO's, crew buses and transit trains at airports who have either openly admitted it or from their conversations or behaviour were clearly 'at it'.

On one occasion when the French authorities were seen conducting ramp checks from the FBO they grabbed their bags, quickly changed clothes in the toilets and could be heard on the phone telling someone to cancel their flight plan and they'd come back later when the coast was clear.

[Korenwolf]

Forgive me if I've missed this anywhere in the foregoing discussion, but where does the owner of the aircraft sit with all of this? Henderson was the 'operator' as I understand it, but seems to have been carrying out his activities with the permission and/or knowledge of the aircraft's owner, so what kind of liability will they bear? Will there be lawsuits/prosecutions etc??

[Jonzarno]

Forgive me if I've missed this anywhere in the foregoing discussion, but where does the owner of the aircraft sit with all of this? Henderson was the 'operator' as I understand it, but seems to have been carrying out his activities with the permission and/or knowledge of the aircraft's owner, so what kind of liability will they bear? Will there be lawsuits/prosecutions etc??

At a criminal level I think you would have to prove that they knew what was being done. The only way that is likely to be possible is if DH was to turn Queens Evidence, testify that that is the case and get a jury to believe him. Absent some kind of confirming documents trail, I doubt the CPS would run it.

At a civil level, I wonder what the insurance company has said?

Also, if DH has any significant assets, I would imagine he is likely to come out of jail a very poor man.

[Sooty25]

I’m very sorry to disagree Sooty.

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (people) to do nothing.”

And, in theory you are correct, however, in practice you are getting yourself involved with a Govt agency, the actions of which might be unpredictable. Sometimes, you end up being the one that suffers.

Are you able to refer to any examples of such a thing happening?

Not CAA, but yes to CMA. Did the "right thing" and all it has achieved is costing me around £500k in business, because CMA "not obliged to investigate every reported offence".

[A4 Pacific]

Sooty

Without precise details, it’s not easy to see any obvious parallels with the two things you are comparing. However, I’m glad you were unable to provide any example involving aviation.

Personally I’d be very happy to see a lot more GA ramp checks. From what people are saying about the prevalence of so called grey (illegal) charters, it looks like there’s no hope of self policing.

[Sooty25]

Sooty

Without precise details, it’s not easy to see any obvious parallels with the two things you are comparing. However, I’m glad you were unable to provide any example involving aviation.

Personally I’d be very happy to see a lot more GA ramp checks. From what people are saying about the prevalence of so called grey (illegal) charters, it looks like there’s no hope of self policing.

The parallel is, from personal, experience, I have found that voluntarily engaging with Govt authorities for the greater good, can be both stressful and bliddy expensive, with ultimately no benefit to anyone. Whether it is aviation, business, maritime or medical, creating waves isn't like running to teacher!

Ramp checks are exactly what needs to be done, just don't expect me to run around whistle blowing. We pay taxes for people to be out their doing them. I completely support the sentencing, maybe it should have been stiffer, just a shame how it came about.

[rdfb]

I think everyone here is against grey charters and would like to see strong action taken against those that operate them; but that said, we should be a bit careful of what we wish for.

Unless a significant proportion of grey charters are reported to the authorities backed by strong objective evidence that will ensure conviction resulting in the activity being effectively deterred, the only way the authorities can crack down is by instituting widespread ramp checks.

These could be either random or based on suspicions reported by pilots seeing a strange aircraft arrive with three or four on board.

I guess it’s an open question as to whether that’s a price we are willing to pay to try to help stop something like this happening again as well as whether or not it would actually work.

At the moment, legal commercial operators are apparently being undercut by illegal charters. So the money needed for effective enforcement does exist: if you spend this money on enforcement, the legal operators will get that business. The problem is that as I understand it they're already paying for this in their AOC fees, but the enforcement isn't happening and they're losing business as a result.

Of course that means a lot more hassle for us, potentially with innocent pilots being hauled over the coals for minor documentation issues and also results in the CAA having to hire more inspectors for whom our community will have to pay one way or another.

I'm OK with this. We can't have it both ways: either the law is enforced or it is not. I think the rule of law needs to apply, and I'm happy to be forced to make sure my paperwork is in order if everyone else's is, too. We do need some "Just Culture" though in that harmless inadvertent violations need to be treated appropriately - and transitioning over to a tougher regime on ramp checks would also need to done considerately for those who are making every effort to comply. Unnecessary complexity needs to also be simplified, and the rules made clear and ambiguities removed.

[johnm]

If illegal charters are sufficiently obvious that legal operators are being undercut, then legal operators should be doing some whistleblowing IMHO as should the rest of us. There's a difference between a PPL doing a cost shared private flight and illegal charters and there is a danger that perfectly reasonable cost shared flights might get tangled up in this because of grey areas.

[Flintstone]

It's not that easy. CAA won't/can't do anything unless they catch them red-handed.

[matspart3]

In 24 years at Staverton, I don’t recall the CAA turning up to ramp check anybody during any of the Cheltenham Races.

Alongside the bona fide AOC jets and turboprops there were always a gaggle of N-reg and G-reg twins and singles patently engaged in grey charter. There were legitimate privately owned and operated aircraft too.

I guess it’s a resource issue, but the various special events around the sporting calendar would be a ‘target rich’ environment for the ramp checkers I’d imagine.

[Paul_Sengupta]

I don't think random ramp checks are the answer...they could be checking every arrival for months at Popham without finding a grey charter, while inconveniencing hundreds of people. It needs to be intelligence led, as does smuggling and the other things which people have been caught doing, using an aeroplane.

Iceman has said on here in the past about random checks at places like Badminton, and I've heard about checks at other horse race events, but those are fairly specific places rather than random air taxi activity. I have heard about them doing checks at the Cheltenham Races for the helicopters I think.

I don't think this "70% of us know about someone doing a grey charter" thing is the case...I've never come across it in 25 years of flying and neither have most people I know...unless that referred to 70% of ATCOs.

[RisePilot]

I don't think this "70% of us know about someone doing a grey charter" thing is the case...I've never come across it in 25 years of flying and neither have most people I know

Same here; 15 years of flying and I've never heard of a single instance. If someone is going to do something dodgy, there are many far more lucrative sectors.

If you want to search out miscreants, get a job as a policeman.

[Flintstone]

If someone is going to do something dodgy, there are many far more lucrative sectors.

Yet the case under discussion proves they do this and not the more lucrative stuff. Those of us who work in the industry also know it happens, as I've already described.

I've never seen an armed robbery, mugging, smash 'n grab either. Doesn't mean they don't happen.

[Edward Bellamy]

One thing that prevents enforcement is that a lot of time the passengers are in on it, even if they don’t necessarily understand or care about the safety implications. The Sala case was unusual in that he probably didn’t know something illegal was happening.

The CAA have done checks in the past, but often upon asking ‘sir/madam how much did you pay for your flight today?’ the answer is ‘oh nothing, the pilot is just a friend of ours’.

It’s probably more worthwhile trying to educate people about the dangers, because once a flight is taking place and assuming no accident occurs, it’s almost impossible to catch people red handed.

[matspart3]

One thing that prevents enforcement is that a lot of time the passengers are in on it, even if they don’t necessarily understand or care about the safety implications….

The CAA have done checks in the past, but often upon asking ‘sir/madam how much did you pay for your flight today?’ the answer is ‘oh nothing, the pilot is just a friend of ours’.

….it’s almost impossible to catch people red handed.

The follow up question, “What’s your friend’s name?” would normally suffice. Doing it on departure, when they’re normally p!$$ed would be far more effective too.

Ironically, we once had a DfT (now CAA) security inspection during race week, which created lots of work for us, making sure we were correctly screening and processing the AOC passengers, while the dodgy charter pax used the side gate because they’re not subject to security screening.