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3 Answers

Expanding on ‘expected’ routing.

Asked by: 1074 views ,
Commercial Pilot, FAA Regulations, Instrument Rating

I have a question regarding the definition of "expected" with regard to air traffic control and its application to lost comm procedures under IFR.
§91.185 IFR operations: Two-way radio communications failure.
...
(c) IFR Conditions. If the failure occurs in IFR conditions...
(1) Route.
(iii) In the absence of an assigned route, by the route that ATC has advised may be expected in a further clearance...
 
I had a discussion with a fellow pilot today and they told me that "expected" in this case is a route that ATC has verbally and explicitly told the pilots to expect. For the longest time this made sense, but I presented another scenario and wanted the collective opinion you all here.
 
SCENARIO:
You are on an IFR flight plan in IMC conditions to airport A. Let's say airport A has one runway, and it is Rwy 9/27. Your IFR clearance was "cleared as filed." Your flight plan with ATC has a STAR filed on your route. This STAR has routing to bring you into Rwy 27. You pull up the ATIS and it says that the airport is landing and departing Rwy 9. There is another STAR that takes you into Rwy 9 from your same current route. Before ATC can say anything, you lose all radio communication.
Officially: do you continue on your original filed STAR to the obviously wrong-direction runway, or would you consider the information in the ATIS to satisfy the "expected" language of §91.185 and take it upon yourself to change your filed arrival and land with the flow of traffic? ATC had never had the chance to tell you which arrival to expect, and they don't know if you have the ATIS or not. Bonus question: would your answer be different if you were flying overseas?

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3 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Mark Kolber on May 07, 2023

    AIM 6–4–1 Two-Way Radio Communications Failure
    a. It is virtually impossible to provide regulations and procedures applicable to all possible situations associated with two-way radio communications failure. During two-way radio communications failure, when confronted by a situation not covered in the regulation, pilots are expected to exercise good judgment in whatever action they elect to take. Should the situation so dictate they should not be reluctant to use the emergency action contained in 14 CFR Section 91.3(b).

    Beyond that, the observations that in a radar environment, ATC will clear traffic for most anything reasonable you can do, the best thing is to get out of the system in the most expeditious manner, doing what is “expected” in the *practical* sense, and pilot-side lost comm in 2023 will almost always be an emergency, lead me to treat 91.185 as a guideline and avoid detailed academic lost comm discussions.

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  2. Mark Kolber on May 07, 2023

    But to answer your question directly,

    “by the route that ATC has advised may be expected in a further clearance…” in the regulation means exactly what it says..

    “Expect 5,000 10 minutes after departure.”
    “Expect vectors to the ILS 35.”
    “Expect further clearance at 1920Z”

    It does not mean, “gee, they probably expectme to do something they haven’t mentioned yet, but I expect they want me to do that. That’s what I would do in most cases, but it is not what the regulation is talking about. .

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  3. Dmitriy on May 07, 2023

    Mark,

    If ATC are the ones that publish the ATIS, I wouldn’t entirely consider that as something they “haven’t mentioned yet.”

    However, I do like your approach to the matter in your first reply. Thank you.

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