Tower not answering - what actually happened here?

[DXB]

Several good points made in the discussion here - thanks for letting me process a situation unfamiliar to me.  Given the significant turbulence and my related fatigue, fumbling with my cell phone call might not have been the most effective thing to do, particularly since the tower number wasn't listed in the AFD - I had to call my FBO once on the ground to get it.  I certainly thought about contacting approach while in the air; had the conditions been pleasant rather than turbulence in cold rain 1000ft below the freezing level, I probably would have done just that. Instead I was just fatigued and was still wondering if it was my screw up somehow - I just felt like being on the ground at that moment and took the easiest out.  Calling ground or clearance frequency at the field would have been a great idea; unfortunately that only occurred to me once I landed at a nontowered field - another sign of my slowed mentation under the circumstances.

I'm not interested in going after the controller here, though a NASA report would be reasonable.  I do wonder if there is some increased complacency at ATC facilities seeing very little work during the COVID19 shutdowns - at least that was my first thought after not getting an answer from the tower at a field where I've landed many hundreds of times without issue. 

[Shadrach]

1 minute ago, DXB said:

Instead I was just fatigued and was still wondering if it was my screw up somehow - I just felt like being on the ground at that moment and took the easiest out. 

Good decision making on your part. 

[yvesg]

How about setting transponder code to 7600? This might awaken twr and perhaps have them check their gear?

Yves

[Vno]

3 hours ago, DXB said:

 

"I'm not interested in going after the controller here, though a NASA report would be reasonable.  "

Good Move. Everyone makes mistakes. There either has been or will be a time where it is on the other foot and you might be the one who made an error. (If any was made. No way to know) I know I have been in that situation.

Self-critique is sometimes the hardest punishment that can be had.

Brian

[Frank B.]

5 hours ago, Vno said:

Good Move. Everyone makes mistakes. There either has been or will be a time where it is on the other foot and you might be the one who made an error. (If any was made. No way to know) I know I have been in that situation.

Self-critique is sometimes the hardest punishment that can be had.

Brian

There is no shame in filing a NASA report. Anyone who is perfect and hasn’t made a mistake and inadvertently violated a FAR or had at least a small airspace infraction, in my opinion,  probably hasn’t flown very much. I was going into a very busy “flight training” class Delta airport which was under the Charlie airspace of another very busy training airport, talking to the tower when he calls a wide right downwind for me and I inadvertently just touched the Charlie. Since I was faster than the trainers I appreciated him putting me into the wide pattern vs putting me #6 in line to land but I accept full responsibility for accepting the position in the pattern which inadvertently caused me to violate the airspace although it may have only been less than 100 ft horizontal. 
 

 

[Shadrach]

7 hours ago, yvesg said:

How about setting transponder code to 7600? This might awaken twr and perhaps have them check their gear?

Yves

I think 7600 is used when you’ve lost communication with a facility with which you were previously communicating. Going from assigned squawk to 7600 lets the controller know that you have comm issue. In this case, Dev didn’t have a comm issue and he was not in communication with any facility prior to attempting to contact tower.

[kmyfm20s]

14 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Someone told me afterwards that operating the plane with a known, failed charging system would have required a ferry permit to be legal.  They also said that the electric T&B should have been placarded INOP.  

Charging system is required on the IFR equipment list. Source of power is required for VFR night flight equipment list. Day time VFR a charging system or source of power is not needed but if your plane was manufactured after 1996 you need anti collisions lights, so I a source of power would be needed for those planes.

[Shadrach]

26 minutes ago, kmyfm20s said:

Charging system is required on the IFR equipment list. Source of power is required for VFR night flight equipment list. Day time VFR a charging system or source of power is not needed but if your plane was manufactured after 1996 you need anti collisions lights, so I a source of power would be needed for those planes.

My plane was 29 in 1996!  So looks like my morning CAVU flight was legal save for not placarding the electric T&B INOP.  Good thing the Statute Of Limitations has long passed!

[bradp]

Dev - next time (if there is one), get on the horn with PHL approach.  You don’t have to fumble with a cell phone and they have a direct landline to PNE.  Tell them you can’t raise tower, you’ll get another pair of eyes and take some of the workload off for traffic and weather in deteriorating conditions so you can focus on the primary task.  

[GeeBee]

I usually say, "If you can hear me, rock the tower". 

Seriously. if you are with approach and. you cannot raise the tower, tell approach and land. Towers don't want to have to write up a go-around which they are required to do unless you tell them ahead of time by asking for the option. Some years ago I was approaching DFW. Could not get a word in edgewise on tower to get a landing clearance. I remembered the immortal words of. the ATL tower chief, "if you can't get us, just land, we know you're coming from approach." So I double checked the runway and told the F/O, "go ahead and land". We did and the tower controller then said,  "turn right, hold short 17R and thank you so much". 

The same tower chief told me a story of a phone call he got from a Captain that was beating around the bush about his landing, then he finally said, "Captain, just tell me what you did."  He blubbered out, "We landed without a clearance", the tower chief said into the phone, "OK, cleared to land".  

 

 

[Andy95W]

2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

 

 I remembered the immortal words of. the ATL tower chief, "if you can't get us, just land, we know you're coming from approach." 

 

Around 2001, I went on a tower tour in DTW.  They said the exact same thing.

[EricJ]

3 hours ago, GeeBee said:

I usually say, "If you can hear me, rock the tower". 

Seriously. if you are with approach and. you cannot raise the tower, tell approach and land. Towers don't want to have to write up a go-around which they are required to do unless you tell them ahead of time by asking for the option. Some years ago I was approaching DFW. Could not get a word in edgewise on tower to get a landing clearance. I remembered the immortal words of. the ATL tower chief, "if you can't get us, just land, we know you're coming from approach." So I double checked the runway and told the F/O, "go ahead and land". We did and the tower controller then said,  "turn right, hold short 17R and thank you so much". 

The same tower chief told me a story of a phone call he got from a Captain that was beating around the bush about his landing, then he finally said, "Captain, just tell me what you did."  He blubbered out, "We landed without a clearance", the tower chief said into the phone, "OK, cleared to land".  

That's consistent with lost comms procedures being just continue as cleared, and why showing up on time is important in that case.