1994-10 · NASA ASRS report 285126
FREQ CONGESTION ON CTAF.
ON OCT/XX/94; I WAS ON AN IFR FLT PLAN IN VFR WX WITH MILLVILLE AS A SCHEDULED FUEL STOP. ATLANTIC CITY APCH CLRED ME TO THE MILLVILLE ARPT FOR A VISUAL APCH; AT WHICH TIME I CANCELED THE IFR CLRNC AND RAISED MILLVILLE RADIO ON 123.65 (CTAF). THE RADIO RESPONSE I RECEIVED WAS FROM A GENTLEMAN WHO GAVE ME A PROLONGED LITANY OF ALL OF THE ACFT IN THE GENERAL AREA WHO HAD APPARENTLY RPTED IN WITHIN THE LAST SEVERAL MINS. THE WIND FAVORED RWY 28 AND THE PLANES IN THE PATTERN WERE LNDG RWY 28: THERE WAS ALSO AN ACFT MAKING PRACTICE LOW APCHS FOR THE ILS RWY 10. THE GENTLEMEN ON THE RADIO FREQ EFFECTIVELY BLOCKED ALL OTHER AIR-TO-AIR OR GND-TO-AIR COM WITH HIS EXCESSIVE DESCRIPTION OF THE TFC TO ANYBODY AND EVERYBODY WHO CALLED IN. THIS MEANT THAT THE ACFT IN THE PATTERN COULD NOT EFFECTIVELY COM WITH ONE ANOTHER AND CERTAINLY THE ACFT MAKING THE LOW APCH ILS TO RWY 10 PRESENTED A HAZARD TO RWY 28 TFC; IN THAT WE COULD NOT EFFECTIVELY COM WITH THIS ACFT; MAKING A LOW TFC PATTERN 180 DEGS TO THE PREVAILING PATTERN. FOLLOWING A 30 MIN GND FUEL STOP; I RECONTACTED CTAF ON 123.65 FOR RE-ACTIVATION OF MY IFR FLT PLAN. A NEW RADIO OPERATOR READ THE NEW IFR CLRNC; FOLLOWING WHICH I ASKED FOR CLARIFICATION OF 1 INTXN; AT WHICH TIME SHE REREAD THE ENTIRE CLRNC FROM START TO FINISH; WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. MY CLRNC VOID TIME WAS 2 MINS FOLLOWING THE FIRST READING. MEANWHILE; THE FREQ WAS BLOCKED AND MULTIPLE ACFT WERE TRYING TO COM WITH ONE ANOTHER. IN ADDITION TO THE CTAF FREQ; A UNICOM FREQ IS LISTED. MY AIRMAN'S INFO MANUAL INDICATES THAT THE CTAF FREQ SHOULD BE USED FOR TA'S WHEN A TWR IS ACTIVE; AS IN THIS CASE. THE 2 INDIVIDUALS WORKING THE CTAF FREQ WERE DEFINITELY BLOCKING THE MAJORITY OF XMISSIONS BEING ATTEMPTED BY OTHER PLTS. I FEEL THAT THIS DEFINITELY REPRESENTS A SAFETY HAZARD AND THESE 2 INDIVIDUALS SHOULD EITHER BE EXCLUDED FROM USE OF THE RADIO OR AT LEAST UNDERGO SIGNIFICANT RETRAINING SO AS TO UNDERSTAND THEIR ROLE IN ATC AND NOT BECOME AN IMPEDIMENT TO SAFETY AT THIS AIRFIELD.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.