FC5372 - Flights in conflict zones
Initial Report
After my duty on [date], I received a duty change notification for the next day to operate [Base to Amman]. After my last Amman (AMM) flight, I was worried/stressed about the safety to operate again into AMM. When I operated AMM on [date], after landing back in [Base] I found out there had been a Hezbollah attack with Falcq rockets just north of the route I had just flown over. This caused serious stress to my wife and family when I was enroute. Afterwards I was surprised how I was not informed about serious incidents like this while I was operating very nearby.
So when I was informed I would need to operate to AMM again, I was seriously stressed. As of [date], Israel has deployed military operations on the Western Jordan bank with aerial bombardments and ground attacks. Our normal arrival route into AMM overflies the Western Bank north of Jerusalem at 10000’. GPS jamming and spoofing add an additional threat to situational awareness and the aircrafts actual navigation/ position.
I contacted [Company] crew control explaining the situation and requesting to operate any other duty than the AMM duty. Or, if a detour via Egypt would be available, I would be happy to operate around Israeli airspace. Crew control advised they cannot give me information about the routing, and advised me to contact the duty pilot. On the phone with the duty pilot, he advised me they are constantly monitoring the situation and assuring the safest route. He explained the routing via Egypt might not be possible due military activity in the south near the Red Sea, so overflying Israel might be the safest option for the moment. He informed me [Company] flights to Tel Aviv are currently cancelled. He understood my concerns about the safety. He couldn’t give any more information than that.
Further I raised the fact there is zero information available to [Company] flight crew towards current no fly zones, military actions, safe altitudes, emergency routings, loss of comm procedures, contingency procedures when approaching Israel or overhead Israel in case of aerial activity etc. I contacted crew control again to advise I was seriously worried about the safety on the AMM flight, and I was not able to guarantee safety to passengers and crew operating into AMM. Operating any other duty would have been fine, but crew control advised me they understood my position but had to assign me an UA/A (unauthorised absence).
This UA/A is a serious threat into pressuring/intimidating pilots to operate into or overhead an active war zone. Gathering information to ensure safety of the flights we operate is something we do every single day (weather, NOTAMs, defects etc), but, as stated above, there is no situational information available to pilots operating into AMM/TLV. I operated into AMM before, both around Egypt and over Israel, and I experienced the difficulties of operating in that region. My decision as a commander not to operate into AMM on this day was made after gathering all the (very limited) information available to me. As a commander I am legally responsible for the safety of the aircraft, crew and passengers onboard. [Company] is interfering in this decision-making process and forcing commanders to take legal responsibility of flying over an active warzone without providing extensive information by assigning unauthorised absence and a disciplinary hearing.
comments
DfT Comments
DfT is responsible for providing advice to UK registered aircraft operating in overseas airspace where there are risks linked to ongoing conflict. It is a host state responsibility to issue warnings of potential risks to civil aviation operations but, where this is not done, the UK will issue its own advice. This is done through issuing NOTAMs. The UK follows a three-tiered approach to NOTAMs as follows:
Level 1 (Advisory) is the lowest level of advice and highlights concerns for airlines to consider in their own risk assessments.
Level 2 (Recommendation) recommends airlines do not operate either below a certain altitude, or at all, over specific airspace.
Level 3 (Legal Prohibition) the NOTAM is accompanied by a legal Direction under the Aviation Security Act to UK airlines, making it an offence to enter certain airspace.
DfT-issued NOTAMs only apply to UK airlines and UK registered aircraft and HMG has no ability to require airlines registered in other countries which may be carrying UK nationals to avoid using particular airspace.
Aside from a Level 3 NOTAM, which utilizes legal powers, it is ultimately down to individual airlines to decide if they will operate or not based on their own internal risk assessments, however going against formal HMG advice may impact on their liability and insurance should an incident occur.
Industry will (and do) take operational decisions on pausing flights where they judge the risk has reached their threshold. Different airlines have different thresholds. DfT remains in regular contact with UK airlines operating in the wider region. This includes: ongoing bilateral engagement with individual carriers on route-specific queries; bi-annual “all carriers” meetings on overflights risks (including a threat briefing at SECRET from UK intelligence partners); and ad hoc “all carriers” meetings in response to developing events (a crisis response mechanism). All of the major UK air carriers have security cleared staff within their security departments who are able to be briefed by appropriate HMG partners.
Internationally, DfT represents the UK in a number of expert forums including the Safer Skies Consultative Committee (SSCC) and the Expert Group on Risk Identification for Conflict Zones (EGRICZ) which bring together states-level experts in this area to develop best practice and guidance in this area; EGRICZ also has a coordination function in a crisis to try and align state responses where possible. DfT also works closely on a bilateral basis with key like-minded partners including the 5Eyes as well as France, Germany and EASA amongst others.
DfT assesses the level of threat to civil aviation in overseas airspace in line with ICAO guidance (Doc 10084, 3rdedition, published October 2023). This is informed by information from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) and Defence Intelligence on state-based capabilities. There is a rolling programme of assessments for those areas where DfT has existing airspace advice, ensuring advice does not remain in place when it is not required. For fast developing situations (e.g. Sudan, Israel/Hamas) DfT uses fast-time reporting from HMG and open-sources to make an initial assessment of the situation and issue relevant advice which is then refined as more information and considered assessments become available.
CHIRP Comment
This is a very topical report relating to activities in the Middle East that are fluid and where airspace activities and threats can be uncertain. However, whilst an individual may have valid concerns, it is unlikely that they will have sufficient information with which to make definitive real-time judgements and so they have to rely on companies and government agencies to make assessments about the safety of specific airspace areas.
The issue of flights in conflict zones is one that CHIRP has previously discussed and the response we have received from the CAA is that there are intelligence assessment methods that are discussed between airlines and DfT/CAA in order to determine the risk at any given time. Furthermore, the airline insurance industry also reviews such conflict risks on a daily basis and instructs their airline customers accordingly as to which airspace areas they can or cannot operate in.
As noted in Air Transport FEEDBACK Edition 152 and their comments above, DfT provide the conduit for airspace threat assessments based on various intelligence feeds and, although we can understand personal concerns and agree that it is always healthy to ask appropriate questions of the company as to what assessments have been made, ultimately, when assured that a process had been conducted, then the captain of an aircraft (or other vessel) must operate within the associated company constraints rather than second-guess such assessments based on open-source media that may or may not be an accurate reflection of what is really going on.
But the company ought to at least reassure captains that they have applied due process and, whilst we wouldn’t necessarily expect the company to be specific about what is discussed within their threat assessments, they ought to communicate clearly to their crews what processes and risk assessments are in place to review airspace use, and when that was last conducted in relation to the flight; it seems that this was not initially done in an effective manner in the case of this report.
It is likely that insurers would be the most cautious in this respect and would advise companies when they could or could not fly in specific airspaces. Companies will not casually put aircraft, crews and passengers at risk due to safety and reputational risk. Whilst captains are of course responsible for the safety of the flight, this does not extend to refusing to operate when a rational explanation has been given as to the threat assessment based on robust intelligence assessment processes carried out at State level through Security Services, DfT and the companies themselves. Of course, once operating, if captains became aware of threats as they are actually approaching conflict airspace (either visually or from other sources such as ATC or other aircraft) then, if they cannot get advice from their company in a timely manner (for example through ACARS), they would have to make a decision themselves as to whether it was appropriate to continue into that airspace rather than just blindly carrying on.