Hi,

I have been a happy user for a long time but there is one thing I would like to request. I would like a way to make sudden changes to a flight plan due to unexpected situations that occur during a flight like engine failure, icing, shortage of fuel, etc. The other day at 6000 ft I was getting severe icing and needed to descend to 2000 to get out of the clouds. But that was below the scheduled altitude for my route and ATC kept scolding me. I requested permission to descend, but it was denied and then all I got as "expedite your climb"....

Since the pilot is ultimately responsible for the safety of the flight I would like to see a command like "cannot comply". And then ATC might come back asking what the pilot proposes to do. I do not know the correct protocols, but something would be handy. For now, I am cancelling IFR to stop the nagging, but that is not what would happen in reality, no?

I really don't know what should be done, but throw the question out to the community because there are situations where the plan can no longer be followed.

ATC will let you descend to the Minimum safe altitude, based on flight plan elevations and your setting of Min Enroute AGL.  You could lower that setting to get lower altitudes approved.

In an IFR situation, the best bet would be to find the nearest airport with approaches and request vectors to the RNAV or ILS approach at that airport, and after starting that, request a descent to the FAF altitude for that approach.  If that is too low for the terrain, ATC will give you the lowest "safe" altitude based on the calculation above.

As long as you are on IFR, ATC is going to try and prevent you from impacting the ground.

Dave

Hello,
Thanks for the procedure.
In the same theme, some time (year) ago I had proposed to integrate the possibility of requesting a change of course due to a thunderstorm cloud (for example) is it yet in the P2ATC evolution projects?

Vincent

Edited April 18, 20215 yr by vinsounet