What you should know about NOTAMs?

By Adam Hunt

Recently I have had a few questions from COPA members about NOTAMs.

The most often asked question is “just how far do I have to be flying before I need to check NOTAMs?” or “I don’t really need to check NOTAMs on a local flight, do I?”

Those are easy questions to answer from two perspectives – from the CARs and also from flying safely and managing your flying risks. In both cases you must check NOTAMS before every flight!

The CARs are pretty straightforward – they say:

CAR 602.71 Pre-flight Information

The pilot-in-command of an aircraft shall, before commencing a flight, be familiar with the available information that is appropriate to the intended flight.

So that means that if you fly into new restricted airspace or something similar, you can expect to be charged with the airspace violation (CAR 601.04) and with CAR 602.71 as well.

The maximum penalty for breaking CAR 602.71 is currently $500 for individuals and $2500 for corporations. You can expect the same fines for violating restricted airspace you didn’t know about, too.

Aside from the rules, is there any real reason to bother checking NOTAMs on a local flight when you know the area well and have been flying there for years?

The answer is “yes” and I will give you three examples to show you why:

• Recently a temporary restricted area was imposed around Ottawa for U.S. President Bush’s State Visit. The airspace restrictions were very well publicized. One local pilot decided to go flying from his own strip about 20 nm south of Ottawa. Presumably he hadn’t checked the NOTAMs as he was inside the restricted area. Fortunately he was only intercepted by F-18s and will probably have to pay a fine – the good news is that he wasn’t shot down!
• A number of years ago I was living in Winnipeg and flying from a small airport to the west of the city. One day I was going flying on a local flight and checked the NOTAMs. There was a new NOTAM for a tower just 6 miles from my home base, but the NOTAM said the new tower was 1109 feet AGL. I thought that just couldn’t be right, it must be a typo! How could anyone build a tower that big so close to where I fly from all the time and I didn’t notice it already? On my flight I went and checked and there it was, about one mile from the Trans Canada highway near Elie and it was over a thousand feet tall. It had appeared in only a few days!
• In 2001 a new rocket range was established at Cayuga, south of Hamilton, Ontario. It was only used one or two days a month and was clearly NOTAMed when in use, but still three pilots flying from Hamilton and area airports on local flights were charged with violating the restricted airspace – in all cases they hadn’t checked the NOTAMs because they were going to familiar places on local flights – so what could have changed? In this case they were fortunate – the rocket range officers were very careful to make sure the airspace was clear of airplanes before any rockets were fired and, while three pilots were charged under CAR 601.04, no one was hurt.

The simple fact is that even if you live in a remote part of Canada you may find something unexpected happening in your local area that will affect your safety if you don’t check the NOTAMs.

These can include forest fires, military exercises, natural and man-made disasters (I have seen NOTAMs for train wrecks in the past), chemical spills, mine disasters, short-notice blasting events, new towers, rocket launches, scientific balloon flights, VIP visits, aircraft accident sites and dozens of other unusual events that TC thought were better to keep aircraft away from for their own safety.

There are only two ways to get NOTAMs at the present – via phone or fax from your regional Nav Canada Flight Information Centre (FIC) or from the Nav Canada Aviation Weather website.

NOTAM service is one thing that we all pay our annual Nav Canada ANS fee to have available. Even those aircraft that are exempt from the annual fee, like gliders, balloons, ultralights and other aircraft under 1328 lbs, still have access to the NOTAMs from those two Nav Canada sources and need to check them before flying.

Flying without checking the NOTAMs is not only a violation of the CARs; it isn’t a good way to manage the risks on your flight.