His generation often felt it unnecessary to declare an emergency.

In some areas of aviation this still stands today.

Nuclear stuff came after this incident and also was American manned. Station Commander indicates a British (RAF) Group Captain which also rules out GC.

I once heard a civil A/C (PA23 size)being refused permission to land at a pure military base in the mid 70s, this A/F was a PPO (prior permission only) which he had not obtained. As he flew through the overhead he declared some sort of engine misfire(?) and was given immediate clearance for landing. I don’t recall any work done to any engine and he was billed in the normal way.

Sometimes the Fire Cover might not be sufficient for the inbound aircraft, ie, the base may normally only need Crash cat 1/2/3 cover ( maybe 1 fire truck ) and the B707 would require Cat 5 cover ( 2 fire trucks & a Land rover )
There would be resistance to let him in if there was little or no cover for protection, however, once an emergency had been declared and the captain had been informed, the onis would be on the captain whether he could land.
Air Traffic would then call in the local fire brigade to assist. I can recall there was a Disaster Plan back then, it had to involve a certain number of casualties before being implemented (30?) but I think was post accident.

I would go with NIMBY if I’m honest, nothing to do with Nukes or secrets, not enough fire cover and not ‘in the book’ stuff heaped upon some poor ATCO ‘somewhere in southern England’. Aircraft may have been reluctant to call an emergency and Air Traffic would have called his bluff (seen a lot of this!) to allow the approach.

It will be written down, its just finding it.

Baz

Graham Adlams Spitfire in Doctor Who, fighting in space.:eek:

Having been in the modern equivalent of AID, I would think that the majority of cases of so called ‘sabotage’ could have been explained by the simple fact of people trying to cover up mistakes. That’s not to say though that acts of deliberate sabotage didn’t take place.

John

Was you involved with Shorts Tucano in Northern Ireland?, after assembly they were put far away from buildings for several days for fear of IRA ‘modifications’

Baz

bush beating

😀

Wasn’t he a member of the Nazi Pasty?……..

……I’ll get me coat:p

Interesting.

Last week I had a conversation with a gentleman who was taking photos of my Spitfire in the garden. He said that his fathers job during WWII was primarily finding sabotaged aircraft from the factories and tracking their source of ‘damage’. Sadly a coach pulled up and we became distracted from our chat, however, he did say sabotage was fairly common, whether IRA, fifth coloumn, disgruntled employees etc was not always clear. He said his fathers team checked every aeroplane before its first test flight.

Baz