International incident?! – Part 1

There’s an expression used in aviation, which is “When the holes in the Swiss cheese line up”. It’s often used to explain what led up to an accident occurring, but it can also be used for any incident, even far less serious ones. Like the one that happened to me.

The expression explains how a series of events occurred that taken together allowed the incident to happen but if any one or more had not occurred in the way that it or they did, the end result would either not have happened at all or would have been completely different. The following image makes it easy to understand.

I’ll explain how this how is relevant to what happened to me during my recent flight up to the UK and to do so I’ll need to go right back to the start of the flight. I originally intended to take off at 8.00 am but couldn’t do so on account of low cloud at Malbec. In fact I couldn’t get away until 10.10 am, a delay of over two hours.

This needn’t have been a problem as the UK is one hour behind France at this time of the year and with a total flight time of 6 1/2 hours or so allowing for landings and take offs en-route, I would still have arrived at Headcorn in Kent in good time to clear the UK entry formalities. So what en-route landings and take offs had I planned?

First off, I had to land at Le Touquet in order to file my international flight plan, the paperwork to leave the Schengen area and the form to notify my entry into the UK. Secondly, I needed at least one, and preferably two fuel stops to ensure that I had enough for the whole flight. The first one would be at Saumur which was half-way and also had an easily accessible pump that accepted bank debit cards, but the second was more problematic.

My calculations showed that as a result of the forecast headwind component it would be touch and go making it across the Channel without a second top-up and the places available for this were limited – either Le Touquet itself or Dieppe. The system at the former is more complicated as you have to order fuel and taxy to a remote delivery point and a staff member has to come and serve you and then you have to return to ‘Control’ to pay. At Dieppe the system was far simpler, so that was my choice.

Now the holes in the Swiss cheese began to line up. Having taken off at 10.10 am I should have arrived at Dieppe in just over 4 1/2 hours even allowing for a previous landing at Saumur. However, due to the larger than expected headwind component, it took 5 1/2 hours during which my GPS was switched on the whole time, although this shouldn’t have been a problem as it was plugged into a 12V socket on the Savannah’s panel.

The delay was compounded even further, though, because whereas I thought I’d be able to serve myself with fuel and get away pretty swiftly, it turned out that the pump there is operated by the parachute school and only the jump aircraft pilot can do it. And he was in the air. So after I’d refuelled and paid, it was a full six hours after leaving Malbec before I was able to get airborne again.

The leg from Dieppe to Le Touquet should only have taken 25 minutes but I knew from the flight so far that it would take longer. In fact it took 45 minutes, almost twice as long. Excluding the landing at Le Touquet, the whole flight from Dieppe to Headcorn should only have taken 1 1/4 hours but with the wind over the Channel having by now picked up considerably, that also was going to take much longer.

So my rough mental calculations told me that allowing for a bit more than an hour to complete the formalities at Le Touquet, I could well be landing at Headcorn at around 6.00 pm local time or later, at which time the airfield would be close to closing. That was already placing me under pressure and things got worse when I took off. I’d noticed coming into Dieppe that my GPS screen was becoming darker and difficult to read, so I’d turned it off after landing.

I thought that it was possibly overheating but after departing Dieppe it was just as bad. I assumed that something was wrong with it but decided to press on as I could still make out my route on its screen, albeit with some difficulty. I had my phone as a back up but was reluctant to try to set it up as controlling the aircraft as I ascended in the wind, which I conservatively estimated at 280 degrees 31 gusting 40 kmh, was demanding in itself without having to take my eyes off the instruments and one hand off the controls to open up the GPS system on my phone.

So I persevered, but that wasn’t all. As I intended to enter the controlled airspace at Le Touquet, I also had to call up Lille Approach on the radio for a squawk code at the same time, so together with the time pressure I was under and the problem I had with my GPS, my workload was quite high to say the least.

Now it just so happens that to the north-east of Dieppe, there’s a restricted area. I didn’t know then what it was for but I did know that entry into it was prohibited at all times, so I’d planned to skirt around it, as shown by the following image of that section of my route.

But by now the holes in the Swiss cheese were fully aligned. Just before I’d called up Lille Approach I’d looked more closely at my GPS screen and thought that I was getting much too close to the restricted area. So did a sharp turn to the right in order, as I thought, to avoid infringing it, but after contacting Lille and getting my squawk code they came back with the following message. “Hotel Papa, you are in a restricted zone”.

That’s the sort of message that no pilot wants to hear. I replied that I didn’t think I was as I’d turned so as not to enter it, but it was later shown that I was wrong and they were right. I had indeed just entered the zone and subsequently even my own recorded track proved it, as shown by the image below.

The blue line is my intended track and the thinner red one is the one I actual flew. It shows that half way towards the zone from leaving Dieppe, my track continually veered left without my noticing. Once I’d noticed it was too late and although I’d taken steps to exit it again as soon as I could, my incursion had been picked up on their radar screen. The chart on my GPS is not 100% accurate and the actual incursion was less than the above image shows, but there was still an incursion and that’s the end of it.

My approach into Le Touquet was otherwise without incident and I received full cooperation and assistance from Lille Approach. However, once I’d taxied in and parked up on the apron, as I opened the aircraft door two large airport employees loomed up and said, “You have committed and infraction. The police want to talk to you”. And so the next phase of this unfortunate incident began.