For The First Time Since World War 2, Malta Is Being Declared ‘Uncontrolled Airspace’ Amidst Control Tower Decontamination
Rigorous decontamination measures that are currently taking place at Malta’s Air Traffic Control Tower will mean that, for the first time in over half a century, the island’s airspace is being downgraded to Class G, or “uncontrolled airspace”.
In a notice sent to airmen yesterday afternoon, it was announced that “due to COVID-19 preventive decontamination measures taking place in the Luqa Tower Operations Room, Aerodrome Control Service will not be available and LMML (that is, Malta’s airport) will be closed for arrivals and departures.”
This will come into effect for 80-minute stretches (between 7pm and 8:20pm) on four separate days, the first of which is actually tonight. The other dates are the next three Wednesdays: 15th, 22nd and 29th April.
The notice goes on to say that the airport would not be available for inflight emergencies, and while national state aircraft on operational missions and civilian medical evacuation flights are allowed to operate in the CTR (controlled traffic region, which is usually the airspace around an airport), “these flights shall take-off and land to and from LMML at pilots’ own discretion”.
This downgrade of Malta’s airspace has already come into effect at least once this month, two weeks ago. The agreement reached will of course need to be amended if the current COVID-19 situation is extended, but will for now apply up to the end of the month.
An unprecedented decision of this sort hasn’t been taken in decades – indeed it last happened when most of the world was at war – but it’s actually the next best thing to completely closing the airspace around Luqa’s airport.
Making Malta’s airspace uncontrolled means pilots will need to maintain their own separation from other aircraft, with Air Traffic Control issuing advisories under VFR (Visual Flight Rules) as opposed to the usual IFR (Instrument Flight Rules).
Flight information services (FIS) and alerting services for emergencies will be monitored and available from Luqa’s radar on frequency 128.150 MHZ, but at a limited capacity.
Meanwhile, Maltese nationals and third-country nationals in possession of a valid Maltese residence permit abroad have been urged to return home no later than this Sunday 12th April or remain at their own risk.
What do you make of this?
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