NOTAMS Are Garbage, says the NTSB chief

[midwestpa24]

So... Because the light at 950', 3nm away from your destination is irrelevant to you, does that also make it irrelevant to the cub that's out there flying low and slow? Perhaps NOTAMs should only contain relevant information for commercial traffic?

How does it go? You can please some of the people, some of the time...

And you think that Cub reviewed all of obstruction light NOTAMs and is aware of each and everyone's location? During the day the light doesn't help, at night it being unlit also doesn't help.

As I said in my earlier post, I've always wondered what the FAA thinks pilots are supposed to do with all the tower light NOTAMs. Do they think we sit down with a map and pinpoint each and every one? Even if you did, do you spend your flight trying to find the now unlit tower?

 

[apr911]

I wonder if it's not so much an issue with technology, but liability? Maybe somebody could apply some intelligence to this, but heaven forbid if there was a bug and some data got misinterpreted or not presented as relevant enough, and an accident happened, the provider of the info would be sued to hell and back?

Purely liability and regulations. As has been noted, most of these notams are purely CYA and required by regulation from the FAA. I cant find anything in the regs (aside from the overly broad catch-all of 91.103, which in theory applies to the pilot not the company doing the filtering) that says you cant filter the results but your company certainly isnt going to be on the FAA's christmas card list.

Once filter though you are assuming liability for the filtered data. This could mean big fines from the FAA for filtering relevant data and big lawsuits from the pilots who's plane is wrecked, likely has serious injuries if they survived at all and certificate suspended for violation of 91.103 because of data that your application filtered.

One thing I see is that the way people access notams has changed significantly in recent years, which may be creating part of the problem. In years past a pilot would talk to flight service to get their information which would be automatically filtered, while today many just get the information and parse it themselves. I'm sure the number of notams required for compliance and CYA reasons has had a sharp increase as well.

Problem #1 is to get the pilots to read anything at all...

Therein kind of implies there is an issue with the system... Or at least the self-briefing system. If I call for my briefing and the briefer is presented with a filtered list of relevant NOTAMs, why then am I presented with all the irrelevant NOTAMs when I self brief? Should not the data presented to a briefer and a pilot be the same?

There should be no surprises between what the briefer tells me and what I receiving on my iPad or online briefing source... After all its not like the briefer is looking outside at to tell me the weather; they're using a similar system that filters the garbage and reading back what they have on their screen without garbage. Granted, briefers seem to at least be better trained at interpreting the data and might highlight something that might have otherwise been overlooked but I have to imagine they're reading back what's on their screen if no other reason then for the same CYA reasons that no software company is currently filtering notams

NOTAMs use abbreviations as they do because notam generation use to be a long and tedious process in transmission and printing. The FAA seems to have forgotten that the idea was to keep them short and concise to save time in transmission/printing and adopted the idea that they are kept short and concise so you can squeeze more in on a page.

If more people would do it your way (call FSS) I think there wouldn’t be as many discussions and opinions like those expressed in this thread. But for some reason, people don’t want to talk to people who are there to help them out. Not sure why that is.

I dont mind talking to briefers but I still get my weather from other online sources. I'm more of a visual person so if I can see it in print I understand it better. I also have copied information from the briefer wrong; whether I missed a point in a RADAR or Turbulence report or transcribed 31 as 13 or vice versa which has drastically changed the weather for my intended route of flight. Talking to a briefer adds that extra complexity and an extra point or 2 in which an error can be committed (maybe the briefer reads it back wrong or I copy it down wrong), plus getting through to the briefer as already noted is a multi step process through the phone system as where I can just click a button and get the latest weather. I also appreciate being able to see how a storm is moving for myself; if I pull up the moving radar map and see the storm has gone clear across half the state in the last 45 minutes (a distance of 100-150NM in PA where I am) than I know if I take off now and fly away from the weather, the storm is still likely to overtake me unless I reach my destination within 60 minutes whereas I could potentially sit tight for 45 minutes and take off in immediately after the storm has passed

 

[bflynn]

When you call for a briefing, a lot of the information is “details upon request”. There should be a way to automatically rank notams by severity/type so the most important things bubble to the top. Then, if you intend to be flying at 300 AGL at night, you can look for the unlit tower notams on your path.

 

[flyingron]

The plain matter is the whole broken mess is rooted in teh sub-10 character a second teletype system of the 1950's. The whole thing needs to be revised for an easier to identify, easier to understand system. As I've posted stories in the past, FSS routinely omits PERTIENENT NOTAMS in briefings even when the pilot specifically asks for them. If a SUPPOSED expert like a FSS briefer can't figure out what they are, how is a pilot?

 

[lancie00]

The other main problem is it seems that I get WAY too many NOTAMS for simple things. Why can't we issue a NOTAM that says "Possible mowing adjacent to runways and taxiways today 8-5"? Instead we get 10 of them telling us there's mowing adjacent to runway 24; then it gets canceled; then they're adjacent to 30; then it's canceled; then they're adjacent to taxiway B; then it canceled. By the time I figure out where they are, they've moved. The system is over complicated and needs a reduction of NOTAMs, as well as a filtering system.

 

[bflynn]

The plain matter is the whole broken mess is rooted in teh sub-10 character a second teletype system of the 1950's. The whole thing needs to be revised for an easier to identify, easier to understand system. As I've posted stories in the past, FSS routinely omits PERTIENENT NOTAMS in briefings even when the pilot specifically asks for them. If a SUPPOSED expert like a FSS briefer can't figure out what they are, how is a pilot?

Ron, can you give an example of a pertinent notams that a pilot asked for and FSS did not give?

 

[Morgan3820]

I agree.

In no way was I trying to imply that I somehow was able to actually fulfill the requirements of 91.103. My irritation is with the guys who do no preflight briefing whatsoever or don’t do an adequate enough one to even get the basics.

I don’t get the feeling that the guys I’ve worked with who don’t get their briefings would get them no matter how concise they are or if they are in plain English. Perhaps it has to do with the complexity of our current system but it seems to me like they just don’t see the need to do it.

Gas in the tanks,
engine starts
giddy up, let's go.

 

[CharlieK]

And you think that Cub reviewed all of obstruction light NOTAMs and is aware of each and everyone's location? During the day the light doesn't help, at night it being unlit also doesn't help.

As I said in my earlier post, I've always wondered what the FAA thinks pilots are supposed to do with all the tower light NOTAMs. Do they think we sit down with a map and pinpoint each and every one? Even if you did, do you spend your flight trying to find the now unlit tower?

No, I think there is a better than average chance that Cub didn't review ANY of the NOTAMs...

My comment was admittedly a weak attempt at saying that things that are irrelevant to some, will/may be important to others.

 

[Half Fast]

As both a pilot, and a NOTAM issuer at my job, I concur completely. Since our airport is a certificated Part 139 commercial airport, there are numerous CYA NOTAMs we are required to issue. Some may be important, but others less than so.

That's it!!! You've solved the problem!

What we need is another category of NOTAMs, the "CYA Category." If the FAA won't stop giving us NOTAMs about out-of-service 20' street lamps, crooked lines painted on taxiways, and FBO coffee messes that run out of half-&-half, the least they can do is put them into the CYA category.

 

[wayne]

When I called FSS I told them I only wanted to know about towers within 5 nm of the airport and over 500' tall. Anything else and I would have bigger issues to deal with at that moment.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Ron, can you give an example of a pertinent notams that a pilot asked for and FSS did not give?

Not Ron, but I’ve been denied information about a TFR that closed my destination airport at myeta because it wasn’t a presidential TFR.

 

[midwestpa24]

That's it!!! You've solved the problem!

What we need is another category of NOTAMs, the "CYA Category." If the FAA won't stop giving us NOTAMs about out-of-service 20' street lamps, crooked lines painted on taxiways, and FBO coffee messes that run out of half-&-half, the least they can do is put them into the CYA category.

I do what I can...

 

[mondtster]

Therein kind of implies there is an issue with the system... Or at least the self-briefing system. If I call for my briefing and the briefer is presented with a filtered list of relevant NOTAMs, why then am I presented with all the irrelevant NOTAMs when I self brief? Should not the data presented to a briefer and a pilot be the same?

Do you have proof that the briefer is presented with anything more or less than what we get when doing a self briefing? I've always been of the belief that the briefer is doing the filtering themselves. Regardless, with the tools we have available today it isn't that hard to strip out the pertinent data to get what we need out of a self briefing. If a person doesn't want to know about the unlit towers, don't read the obstacle notams.

I believe this is the main difference between calling FSS for a briefing and doing it ourselves. The FSS will strip out the unimportant notams for us or we have to do it ourselves if we don't want to talk to someone.

It's the American way to be critical of everything, we'll whine about too many notams then in the next breath we'll whine about not being warned that there is a tower that we almost hit. Which do people want?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

If more people would do it your way (call FSS) I think there wouldn’t be as many discussions and opinions like those expressed in this thread. But for some reason, people don’t want to talk to people who are there to help them out. Not sure why that is.

I stopped calling FSS not too long after they were privatized.

When the FAA ran FSS, the stations were "local-ish" (about one per state in most places) and the briefers knew the territory - They knew what the local terrain did to weather, they knew the airports, they could give you some useful insight.

When LockMart took over, they hired a few of the former FAA people - The ones willing to move to Fort Worth, anyway - But they were then working with people from wherever, and their local knowledge wasn't really accessible any more. To fill out the ranks, they hired a bunch of people off the street, gave them minimal training, paid them a mediocre wage because there wasn't anything about the *quality* of the briefing in the contract, just how fast they had to answer the phone...

...And a new age dawned, in which you could call FSS and they would read you the TAFs along your route, give you some NOTAMs, say "VFR not recommended" if the ceilings were below 10,000 feet, and you could marvel at the "efficiency" of privatization. It was a complete waste of time to call them, I could do much better myself... And here we are.

It’s for the same reasons people spend 30 minutes texting what could’ve been a five minute phone call—personal interaction is a dying art!

OMG get off my lawn LOL WTF.

Most of what I use texts for makes it WAY more efficient than a voice call. With a call, you're still expected to do the small talk "hello, how ya doin', what's goin' on, here's the 2 second thing I could have texted you, I hope everything goes OK with the rest of your day, talk to you soon, bye". If it's just a quick "Hey, do you want me to pick up some beer on the way to your place?" then all that extra stuff is going to slow the conversation down, not speed it up...

We have so many means of communication available today, and each is good for its own purpose. I'm really glad we're no longer limited to snail mail and phone calls.

 

[mondtster]

Gas in the tanks,
engine starts
giddy up, let's go.

I've seen a lot of guys operate just like that! It got a friend of mine in trouble too, flying right through a presidential TFR that there was plenty of warning about.

 

[mondtster]

I stopped calling FSS not too long after they were privatized.

When the FAA ran FSS, the stations were "local-ish" (about one per state in most places) and the briefers knew the territory - They knew what the local terrain did to weather, they knew the airports, they could give you some useful insight.

When LockMart took over, they hired a few of the former FAA people - The ones willing to move to Fort Worth, anyway - But they were then working with people from wherever, and their local knowledge wasn't really accessible any more. To fill out the ranks, they hired a bunch of people off the street, gave them minimal training, paid them a mediocre wage because there wasn't anything about the *quality* of the briefing in the contract, just how fast they had to answer the phone...

...And a new age dawned, in which you could call FSS and they would read you the TAFs along your route, give you some NOTAMs, say "VFR not recommended" if the ceilings were below 10,000 feet, and you could marvel at the "efficiency" of privatization. It was a complete waste of time to call them, I could do much better myself... And here we are.

No dispute there, but if someone wants to whine about wading through a whole bunch of notams on their own, why not just have someone else do the wading and read you the important ones? Seems simple enough to me.

For the record, I probably self brief >90% of the time. I really don't find the notams, or reading them that burdensome.

 

[flyingron]

The thing has been screwed up before the FAA sold out to lock mart.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The thing has been screwed up before the FAA sold out to lock mart.

The NOTAM system sucked, but FSS briefings were pretty good in my experience. Moving to the crappy privatized FSS, plus the iPad/ForeFlight combo coming out, is what caused the big change.

 

[lancie00]

No dispute there, but if someone wants to whine about wading through a whole bunch of notams on their own, why not just have someone else do the wading and read you the important ones? Seems simple enough to me.

For the record, I probably self brief >90% of the time. I really don't find the notams, or reading them that burdensome.

I'm sorry but here's a quick video I took scrolling through the NOTAM's listed on a simple 11 mile flight. Technically, to be legal you must become familiar with "all available information". This is available information so you must become familiar with all of it. What I really like it at the end it's telling me about Somalia air space. Now tell me that the system isn't broke.

 

[Lindberg]

Not Ron, but I’ve been denied information about a TFR that closed my destination airport at myeta because it wasn’t a presidential TFR.

What do you mean you were denied information? Was it a VIP TFR or something else?

 

[mondtster]

I'm sorry but here's a quick video I took scrolling through the NOTAM's listed on a simple 11 mile flight. Technically, to be legal you must become familiar with "all available information". This is available information so you must become familiar with all of it. What I really like it at the end it's telling me about Somalia air space. Now tell me that the system isn't broke.

When quoting a reg, it is probably best to quote it verbatim, not just a paraphrase. Here's the rest of your quote "Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight."

So, how does information about Somalia airspace affect your current flight on your 11 mile flight? The simple answer is, it doesn't. So once you get to the point that you determine that the notam you're reading does not affect your current flight why keep reading it? If you call flight service they aren't likely going to read that one to you, and that is just as much a legal briefing as the self brief is.

 

[MauleSkinner]

What do you mean you were denied information? Was it a VIP TFR or something else?

An air show closed the airport. I happened to be looking at a computer screen while I was getting my briefing (my normal habit), and saw the TFR. I asked the briefer about it, he said “it’s not presidential.” After the third “it’s not presidential,” I cornered him with “confirm this TFR closes my destination airport at my ETA.”

“Yes, but it’s not presidential.”

 

[WannFly]

This thread is shorter than some NOTAMS

 

[flyingcheesehead]

An air show closed the airport. I happened to be looking at a computer screen while I was getting my briefing (my normal habit), and saw the TFR. I asked the briefer about it, he said “it’s not presidential.” After the third “it’s not presidential,” I cornered him with “confirm this TFR closes my destination airport at my ETA.”

“Yes, but it’s not presidential.”

Wow. Face. Palm.

 

[Lindberg]

An air show closed the airport. I happened to be looking at a computer screen while I was getting my briefing (my normal habit), and saw the TFR. I asked the briefer about it, he said “it’s not presidential.” After the third “it’s not presidential,” I cornered him with “confirm this TFR closes my destination airport at my ETA.”

“Yes, but it’s not presidential.”

That's bizarre. I've been given many TFRs by briefers that aren't for the president.

 

[MauleSkinner]

That's bizarre. I've been given many TFRs by briefers that aren't for the president.

so have I...this one was just, well, bizarre.

 

[Hank S]

When quoting a reg, it is probably best to quote it verbatim, not just a paraphrase. Here's the rest of your quote "Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight."

So, how does information about Somalia airspace affect your current flight on your 11 mile flight? The simple answer is, it doesn't. So once you get to the point that you determine that the notam you're reading does not affect your current flight why keep reading it? If you call flight service they aren't likely going to read that one to you, and that is just as much a legal briefing as the self brief is.

So if the NOTAM about Somalia airspace is irrelevant to his flight, why is it being presented? Why should we be reading the listed NOTAMs and sorting by applicability to us? Isn't the system supposed to do that? If not, just dump every NOTAM issued in the country for us to wade through for every flight . . . . .

 

[mondtster]

If not, just dump every NOTAM issued in the country for us to wade through for every flight . . . . .

That's essentially what they do for some of the types of notams, such as the one you're referring to. Either parse them yourself or get the FSS to do it for you.

 

[Eric Stoltz]

Well, if the NOTAM system even gets a hint of reform, the airline lobbyists will literally tell Congress that the world economy will shut down because the airline can't afford the new dispatch software that interprets the new NOTAM system.

Yes, literally. I've heard a few of them say that.

Acceptance is the answer.

 

[lancie00]

When quoting a reg, it is probably best to quote it verbatim, not just a paraphrase. Here's the rest of your quote "Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight."

So, how does information about Somalia airspace affect your current flight on your 11 mile flight? The simple answer is, it doesn't. So once you get to the point that you determine that the notam you're reading does not affect your current flight why keep reading it? If you call flight service they aren't likely going to read that one to you, and that is just as much a legal briefing as the self brief is.

But how do you know it's not relevant until you read it? Are you telling me that you at least start reading every item in that list or just get to a point that you decide you've gone far enough?

 

[hindsight2020]

Well, if the NOTAM system even gets a hint of reform, the airline lobbyists will literally tell Congress that the world economy will shut down because the airline can't afford the new dispatch software that interprets the new NOTAM system.

Yes, literally. I've heard a few of them say that.

Acceptance is the answer.

yup yup. Money: the perennial Occam's Razor in the US of A.

 

[flyingron]

The NOTAM system sucked, but FSS briefings were pretty good in my experience. Moving to the crappy privatized FSS, plus the iPad/ForeFlight combo coming out, is what caused the big change.

Nope, not with regard to NOTAMS. It was more likely than not that an important NOTAM was missed by the old FEDERAL briefer, even one working out an AFSS only 35 miles away from the affected airport.

 

[Stephen Poole]

Forgot to mention my favorite: when Hurricane Katrina came through, I called to report some lights out.

Guy at the other end said, "that's OK. All of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are under a NOTAM."

Now how in the world does a pilot deal with THAT? I guess it simplified the list for a few days ...

 

[mondtster]

But how do you know it's not relevant until you read it? Are you telling me that you at least start reading every item in that list or just get to a point that you decide you've gone far enough?

I read far enough to know if it is applicable or not. In your Sudan example, it should be pretty obvious without reading the whole thing on whether or not it applies to your 10 mile trip. Also, if you get a briefing through either Foreflight or 1800wxbrief.com the notams are well categorized and easy to sift through. Don't want to read the obstruction notams? Then skip over that section. Easy enough. It has been a while since I've tried getting a briefing in garmin pilot to know how they do it.


If one wants to talk about a really broken system, we could discuss how to search for all applicable ADs for an airplane and how to properly comply with them. That's a real mess, notams aren't even close to being on the same level.

 

[MooneyDriver78]

GP gives me 58 pages of stuff, lots of security notams for a direct 10nm flight.


Tom

 

[apr911]

Do you have proof that the briefer is presented with anything more or less than what we get when doing a self briefing? I've always been of the belief that the briefer is doing the filtering themselves. Regardless, with the tools we have available today it isn't that hard to strip out the pertinent data to get what we need out of a self briefing. If a person doesn't want to know about the unlit towers, don't read the obstacle notams.

I dont have any proof whatsover of that they are seeing something different than we are but the alternative actually makes me trust a brief by phone even less than I already do because if they are looking at the exact same unfiltered information we have access to then not only does it take longer to call in and hop through the menu's to reach a person, I then have to hope they read back and I copy down the information correctly and I now have to add trust their ability to read, interpret and filter the data that is relevant.

I wonder also how that squares with 91.103. How are you to become familiar with "all available information" when the briefer isn't giving you "all" available information... As put by MauleSkinner:

An air show closed the airport. I happened to be looking at a computer screen while I was getting my briefing (my normal habit), and saw the TFR. I asked the briefer about it, he said “it’s not presidential.” After the third “it’s not presidential,” I cornered him with “confirm this TFR closes my destination airport at my ETA.”

“Yes, but it’s not presidential.”

Had they flown to that airport and violated the TFR, I doubt "the briefer didnt tell me about it" would suffice when the FAA came knocking for violating that TFR.
In fact, I seem to recall a similar controversy regarding the all too common "pop-up TFRs" that occur when crowds exceed certain sizes, especially before they started plotting stadiums on sectionals.

Another example of "useless" notams are the notams for TFR's over Disneyland/Disney World and Washington, DC. All 3 are posted on sectional charts as no go areas and at least in the case of Washington, DC, you have to have completed a special briefing course on their messy BS system designed to provide "security" to DC for any pilot flying within 60NM (an area of 13,000 sq mi, larger than 9 states including MD, NH, MA, NJ, HI, CT, DE & RI. 8 of those are "original" states too) of the DCA VOR.

It's redundant useless information in NOTAM form for that which is published on the charts.