*Listening to this was both funny and frustrating!!* Why this confusion for a flight which is intended to go directly to the east and cross the pond towards Europe?

Pattern work in a Gulfstream. Best 40k ever spent on landing practice.

I had always wondered how SeaTac and BFI managed to avoid traffic conflicts when their runways are almost parallel and running into each other. Turns out, they don't 🤷🏼‍♀️

That VistaJet turned into THREE jets. 848, 858 and 868. I'm not sure the controller knew which one he was talking to.

I've always said I've wanted a job where my biggest decision is going left or right. After watching this Ive changed my mind.

You could hear the panic in the tower’s voice when the Gulfstream got close to the 757

Just got off the phone with Vista Air dispatch, they are still doing circuits and expect to fly VFR to athens

Several mistakes: 1) ground didn't relay the plan to tower. 2) pilots didn't verify plan with tower. 3) pilots should've questioned the fact that they were given right closed traffic rather than a VFR departure on course. 4) pilots completely hosed the right traffic instruction. They were told to turn right based and botched it (overlying the final, violating the SEA bravo interfered with the SEA south departures). What a mess, all of it avoidable. Very interesting video....could make for excellent training. So many assumptions on top of assumptions, and missed clues.

Just as long as it doesn't end with..."do you have a pen, I have a number for you to call", then it's all good haha....

What a cluster. Imagine being a passenger with these max bank turns and flying around in circles. OMG.

So I'm gathering from everyone else's comments, but tell me... is this what happened? 1 - Pilots had IFR but refiled because their initial runway was no-go due to performance issues 2 - new IFR sat a little too long with ground and didn't make it to the tower in time 3 - pilots took off VFR assuming the IFR was in the tower and shortly to be approved 4 - tower tried to keep them in VFR traffic but the plane was unable due to configuration 5 - pilots assumed tower knew what they wanted and tower assumed pilots were wanting something else 6 - nobody had a good day, but paperwork was minimal

Wasn’t there a clue in the transmissions between ATC and the pilot : “pattern altitude and downwind leg”. Surely that would have indicated someone staying in the circuit.

Vistajetpilot, unflappably cool as a cucumber 😁

"868 requesting departure the the Northeast" might have saved a lot of trouble. Tower doesn't care what happens after you leave, so just fly VFR for a couple minutes to get away from the obvious misunderstanding going on here.

868: let me leave, I’ve already asked to leave Tower: Impossible! Perhaps the archives are incomplete?

1500 so much fun at max bank 🤣

-Looks like one of AirforceProud95 videos 😅

im confused about why ATC kept steering 868 into traffic

This whole thing was caused by ground not telling tower or departure that this was an IFR flight. The runway change was for safety. The pilot however could have made things easier by explaining he had IFR clearance and had no intention to fly patterns! Sometimes standard ATC doesn't cover what was obviously a misunderstanding. The controller might have wondered why a fully loaded Corporate jet would want to do pattern practice! The clue was in the pilot repeatedly telling the controller he was fully fuelled and could not do tight turns. But equally all the pilot needed to have said was that he correctly filed an IFR plan and at the very least needed vectors out of the area!

Lot of questions here about how and why, so here is my take as a 30 year veteran air traffic controller in Chicago. Pilot files a flight plan for Athens, and then calls for clearance. ATC gives ground delay for possibly hundreds of different reasons. Pilot, or pax don’t like the delay so pilot decides to get around it by departing VFR under the mistaken idea that he will be given IFR clearance once airborne. In this case probably tried to use the rouse that they were staying in the pattern, this may have been because the entire airport was stopped for all outgoing traffic, or conditions outside the immediate area were IFR. ATC is not required to issue IFR flight plan to airborne VFR flights, and it’s highly unlikely tower guy could do it anyway. If VFR aircraft encounters IFR conditions a radar facility can provide IFR control but are in no way required to give a requested IFR route or destination and would not do so if they couldn’t for any reason. I have had pilots do this very thing in the center environment. Ground stopped to XYZ airport so pilot departs VFR to avoid ground stop then tries to activate flight plan. This could have, and should have gone like this Pilot: we can’t land for 5 hours Controller: roger, you are cleared to BFI via direct “point” intersection, “point 3 arrival”. Climb and maintain 7k hold at “point” as published expect further clearance in 5 hours. Pilot can’t do anything but cancel IFR request or request a destination that he can be cleared to.

If you have flown this area it is pretty obvious that you cannot extend the downwind leg by four miles and stay out of Rentons airspace - as was instructed by the tower. The airports are so close together that a normal downwind leg is not possible even if you don’t extend it. You have to keep it really tight and fly a heading that closes with the runway. If you then turn base at this point you fly straight through the centreline and into Seatac’s airspace. Also, it is really obvious that the aircraft is on an IFR flight because they are using a flight number as their callsign. If they were flying VFR they would have used their tail number. So a little common sense might have been applied by the tower. The tower clearly did not have their details and should have asked before releasing them and the pilots should have confirmed he knew what they were doing but that can be a little hard sometimes as typically you don’t get a friendly response these days when you question things.

The controller seems to be causing more problems than avoiding. Turning 868 to 320 at 1500ft right into the glide slope of the other plane.

This interaction should be used as an example of how a Captain, First Officer or GA pilot should always maintain there composure when speaking to ATC. Regardless of the situation, An ATC’s job is to provide a safe, orderly flow of traffic. ATC controllers are human, so frustration and anxiety can creep into their brain as well. The pilot handled the complete interaction perfectly by not taking anything personal. Well done, sir!

So here are some explanations to understand who did what and why : -TWR asks the aircraft to squawk VFR and to confirm their intentions : right traffic pattern The crew confirmed and never questioned. TWR kept on giving pattern instructions, the crew still don't question anything. -The crew did not pick up their IFR clearance on the ground (which is standard worldwide, especially if your IFR Flight Plan starts at your departure airport). -To my understanding, BFI is a VFR TWR. VFR Towers are not allowed to give radar vectors. They can give a direction to fly (e.g., eastbound turn), a suggested heading (e.g., fly suggested VFR hdg of 350) but no vector unlike the approach. -When an IFR traffic is ready to depart AFTER it has receiced its IFR departure clearance, on a VFR Towered airport, both the approach and the tower need to coordinate. The IFR aircraft is sometimes held on the ground, waiting for the approach to "release" the aircraft ("hold for release" procedure). So here is the situation for this video : there is an aircraft, which is intending to fly IFR, which hasn't received its IFR departure clearance, and which is already airborne. Let's imagine the level of coordination between the tower and the approach now required...

And this is why you should pick up your IFR clearance on the ground and if you intend to take off vfr you shoul remind tower of your intentions. All of this could have been avoided with a little better communication at the beginning. Obviously the controller had no indication of a departure to the north and due to the pilots comments such as pattern altitude, down leg and base turn it was confusing if the pilot intended to stay in the pattern. Simple misunderstanding that made a departure very confusing and stressful. Props to the pilots for staying cool and collected and not getting flustered

This was very educational to me, because I used to live about an equal distance between KBFI and KSEA. I always wondered how those two airports, and Renton's Boeing Field, coordinated their ATC. Still don't have a complete picture of it, of course, but it was still interesting to listen to and watch (thanks for the great animation).

5:45 , last half of the sentence is "we're picking an IFR up on the other box" (the other radio)

The Cessna 4MA belongs to my flight school, a plane I’ve flown many times 😬😬 same with 48804 😂

that stuff happens in aviation , once I departed and the ATC calls to vector me back to the downwind , I asked the pilot monitoring to tell the ATC the go around traffic needs the downwind vectors and we need to remain on the departure leg , the ATC just apologized and recleared us to remain on the SID , it's common for the controllers to get mixed up which and whom is going where. Now this VISTA JET got a VFR departure which was enough to trigger their attention that there is a confusion with the ATC .

It would be a global.. Not a Gulfstream.. Vistajet doesn't have Gulfstreams

I was dispatching 121 ops. We had pilots take a vfr clearance to lga during flow control. They would sit right under class b space, at the end of 31, wait to land. ATC put a stop to that quickly.

I’ve watched this about 5 times now. There’s so many funny moments!!! 😂 Also, I’ll be flying commercial a few times in the next couple of months. I would have been fine, but this might make me nervous now!

The ATC sounded really stressed out maybe to many working hours. I felt for the guy!

Is it me or did the ATC fuck it all up? Even I knew the 868 was departing. Why did the ATC want to land him??? Yeesh. I can't believe in 2021 with all the computerized technology we have they still haven't figured out how to automate departures and landings.

Maybe the pilot just wanted to appear on a VAS video. 👍

Would love to have heard the untransmitted words exchanged on both ends.

This was amazing to listen to, very strange that no IFR clearance was taken by the crew on the ground, especially in that airspace and than picking it up in the circuit 😳. Oh well for everything there's a first.... nice and very good professional controller btw who helped them out taking the clearance airborne anyway..... Just wanted to say that as there were some remarks about him being in the wrong. Happy everything went without big incidents....

This is one of them videos where I actually pull out my hair watching. Casually nearly cutting across 3 active runways...

Those high dollar pax got the ride of their life in the first ten minutes.

Well that was a complete balls up by ATC. Had them conducting a right base into on coming traffic lol wtf. Then no suggestions from the Captain on vista686 to make left turn or anything? Surprised the vista686 didn’t question what atc was thinking with the downwind departure and right turn after take off from 32L. Why not just request a VFR departure hdg to intercept outbound track and just maintain 1500ft till clear of the airfield then pick you your ifr clearance with you request for climb? The 1500ft requirement call from ATC would’ve been the trigger for me to question things at the holding point. What a shmozzel

Vistajet 868 is a Global 6000 not a Gulfstream

Tower should of have them hold for 5 hours then land and get the clearance.

I live a mile from BFI and it’s quite a lively mix of GA, Freight, Charter, Airtankers, and the occasional F-18 Growler wing popping in from Whidbey NAS

This takes filing an airborne flight plan to a whole new level.

Pilot deserves a medal for flying through this and keeping his cool.

My dad sent me a text showing an ad about the FAA hiring for ATC personnel. This video proves my point to him why I couldn't handle that kind of job.

When no one is ever allowed to make a mistake it can get very difficult not to make a mistake.

I love moments where the controllers get order crazy and start ordering planes “heading north, north now, you need to go north” when you’re looking at your heading indicator and it’s already showing 0/360 and your compass settles down and confirms it along with your gps. “Approach, we’re already heading North... so please advise?” Or “I need you to turn north, turn faster” and you just get to respond “we began turning at the first order, we’re already in a maximum bank, are you suggesting I ignore my plane’s restrictions, is this an emergency?” and hear them start to take their tone down

Yeah, I'm confused, too.

ATC fault, no real fault of Vistajet at all. Thank heavens the pilot was so calm and steady. But to be fair, it's horrendous airspace and ATC have a massive amount to do. Such congestion shouldn't be so common, but that's the way in some places. The "I want" culture in spades.

What the hell is going on here..why did he takeoff vfr and fly around at 1500ft and then tell them he's going to Athens..am I missing something here?? His passengers must be loving this

Pilot should have realized what was going on when he was vectored “downwind”. That means your in the landing pattern

What a weird situation... glad the controller was able to sort things out.

I want clear this whole situation up a bit further than other people may have noticed. Starting from the beginning, Vistajet didn't call up for a regular IFR clearance because they probably had a very high-paying important passenger that was late for something in Athens. He probably was held on the ground for whatever reason and was told to standby for his IFR clearance. He needed to desperately depart to get the passenger to Athens on time, so he decided to depart VFR so that he can just be ready for taxi and takeoff immediately, instead of having to wait for his IFR clearance. These Vistajet seemed to be foreign pilots that aren't very familiar with U.S. VFR procedures, and are especially not aware of how busy SeaTac is. So, they call up tower, holding short of the runway ready for departure, but they never reported their intentions or direction of flight and tower was confused on his intentions VFR. Tower asks Vistajet "just verifying your squawking VFR and understand you WANT a right traffic pattern?" This is a valid question to ask since tower probably never seen a Bombardier Global jet (about the size of CRJ200) depart VFR and also didn't know his intentions since he didn't call up with it. Vistajet thinks that the right traffic pattern question was an instruction and acknowledges it (they simply just said "right traffic pattern" as if it was an instruction for them), not knowing what kind of cluster he would get into, and also says "affirmative, squawking VFR 1200," as a response to tower's 1st part of the question. So tower clears the aircraft for takeoff and expects him to fly a regular traffic pattern like any other pilot would in a prop aircraft. However, the Vistajet pilots probably wanted to just depart VFR northbound or something and pick up IFR, they weren't expecting to fly a VFR pattern. It is quite hard/impossible to fly a tight regular traffic pattern in a big business jet fully loaded with fuel and passengers bound for Athens, and the pilots probably have never attempted to do a traffic pattern in such a jet either, so they ran into some troubles there. They would need to keep a high speed to maintain airborne due to their weight and that causes a slower turn to happen, which was problematic for ATC and other traffic in the area. The pilots also were refusing to land due to maximum landing weight which is part of their plan to force ATC into giving them a IFR clearance in the air to cut the queue and be on their way to Athens. In the end it looks like it worked out besides the horrendous traffic patterns: flightaware.com/live/flight/VJT868/history/20190613/1741Z/KBFI/LGAV

Could they just plan and ask the tower for a VFR flight to the east and fly below the Bravo airspace to a less busy airspace then get their IFR clearance later with Center ?

What a complete cluster. I started watching it thinking "these jet pilots forgot how to fly a standard pattern" until he asks for clearance and then understood the sneaky maneuver he tried to pull. I did the same thing two weeks ago but not out of a class Bravo. Launch VFR due to any number of reasons which would cause delays and pick up your clearance with Center as soon as you are airborne and out of the vicinity. This was a clever plan but abysmally executed and they should have known better, especially in a super busy airspace like SEATAC.

God, that was stressful just to watch!

You can take off vfr and pick up your ifr clearance with approach if they're not busy if not you can always get it with the local flight service station. Not sure what the confusion was all about.

I am not an aviation expert, can someone explain to me exactly what happened in layman’s terms? Thanks!

Why would they not pickup ifr on the ground? Boeing field has a perfectly good clearance frequency which was active (I pulled up liveatc archives to make sure).. Why would they not want departure to vector them safely away from seatac traffic, especially since they were going to pickup ifr anyway?

As an ASEL pilot I’d be so stressed swimming among those large turbine aircraft. Just listening to this I’m glad I’m a hobby flyer and keep it simple and fun.

And now I understand why Kennedy never even lets planes leave their gate without a flight plan at hand, because down the events, it just gets more and more stressful. I also don't understand why they let that Vistajet fly close to all the other arriving and departing traffic all the time, instead of putting him into a holding pattern away from everything, until they have their IFR clearance.

Can someone explain why on earth they flew the pattern before departing to Athens? Why didn’t they just file IFR to Athens from the start?

4:25 I love how the ATC is so dumbstruck that he gets there call sign wrong.

I could've sworn that I was listening to an AirforceProud95 flight simulator session...

At least this pilot is very very calm and fast responsive💯even tho he was so close with that 757! 👍

Circuits in an overweight (at least for landing) Gulfstream... Sounds like fun. Even with the communication breakdown between controllers, it seems like the pilots and the tower had a few opportunities to confirm the intentions before the a/c was even airborne.

Warning: Only pilots and ATC’s can make sense of this. As a total layperson I had no idea what was going on, but sounded like a mess.

KLM and easyJet have collided at Amsterdam. Please make a vid mate :)

I am starting to understand the IFR VFR trick. But I cannot sort out the controllers directions from there. Why was the controller telling the Vistajet to go south were he got into trouble with the 757? Seemingly in preparations for a landing the Vistajet didn't want and claimed he couldn't make? Then to contact approach? After flying around a bit Vistajet went on off to the north then to Athens. So very little of this makes sense to me.

I didn't know one could get IFR clearance once airborne. I'm gonna do that next time on pilotedge.

Retired ATC here. This is painful to listen to.

I presume he should have said he was departing VFR to the north and then contacted approach for the clearance?. But could he not have gotten the clearance from the tower before getting airborn?

74MA sounds like the guy that runs the Aviation 101 channel.

Raynair would consider that a passenger sightseeing excursion , flying around at 1500. The flight attendants will be down the isles to collect from anyone with a window seat . Cash only please

When ATC told a departing plane to fly base I was a bit confused because I usually only hear that instruction given for planes arriving. But the pilot copied the instruction and started flying a south base even though he was departing north, so I figured everything must be okay. However when ATC said that 686 is overrunning their turn for final I almost crapped my pants. Then when ATC calls the flight 848 at 4:34 I did a facepalm. But I have to keep in mind that a bad day in the office for me means that someone can’t print or the coffee pot was empty. A bad day in the office for a controller means that people die. It’s such an incredibly stressful job that there’s a maximum age limit for new controllers, just like there’s a max age limit to join most (if not all) branches of the military. I commend the pilot of 868 for staying calm and being polite. He had every right to be upset about the danger he was put into but he was professional enough to know that his main priority was the safety of the souls onboard, and that there will be plenty of time to complain later.

Omg I had sweaty palms this whole video

Any audio from that Air Canada B772 wind shear divert to HNL a couple days ago? I heard 9 serious injuries.

Would it have been possible for them to file a VFR flight plan temporarily, and then pick up their separately filed ifr flight plan rather than risking the pattern?

I’m lost....can someone explain what’s going on (a non-pilot, here)? Based on comments, it sounds like the pilot was trying something sneaky by “using” instrument vs visual, but, well, I don’t understand (again, non-pilot).

ATC mixes up callsign, calling Vistajet 848... @4:40

Why were they giving the pilots a landing clearance when they were supposed to fly to Athens?

Whoa! This makes no sense. This Vista jet took off and then expected to get IFR clearance to another country while on departure?! Why didn’t he get his IFR clearance before taxing like everyone else? Lol wow. It’s not like this was an uncontrolled airport

For the know-nothings, how did ATC switch from having the Gulfstream depart to land again? ATC says thy can't give IFR clearance airborne. Does that mean the Gulfstream had not cleared a plan before takeoff?

It looked like tower thought that the jet wanted to fly a standard pattern, come back and land. It turns out big fella wanted to go to Athens and pick up IFR airborne but the tower controller did not know his intentions. That’s what caused the confusion from what it looks like here. However, although the pilots were legal as per part 91 rules, the pilots should have let tower know that they intended to depart VFR northbound, instead of not saying anything when tower mentioned the traffic pattern.

‘We’re max bank’ and still never looked at the Seattle TAC

Is getting IFR clearance in the air for a long Trans-Atlantic flight common?

So many people hanging the pilots out to dry when it was in fact ATC at fault.

I work at BFI. Watching this from the ground was as funny as listening to it. Was a huge cluster

Well I am not an expert but the pilot never said the outbound route. Just confirming the right hand pattern. I guess for the controller it was clear he would make a local pattern without an outbound route. I also dont understand why the pilots flown runway heading for a so long time until the controller had to intervention. Then the confiusion was perfect than the controller starting to talking about the base leg.

I am addicted to these videos!

Vistajet says, "every journey is tailored to ensure seamless travel in elegant interiors incorporating in-flight offices and a home away from home environment". Their panes have at minimum 3 different sleeping positions. The top 1% rules the world.

ATC: fly runway heading (140), there is traffic off to your left at 10 o'clock moving to 11 o'clock. VISTAJET 868: roger, can we fly heading 040?

Imagine you just want some gyros and your pilots turning around like a Mary go round

That was pretty crazy. Don't completely understand where it went wrong, until I read down the comments. Luckily no harm done

Be warned before scrolling down to the comments, hell of a lot of expert pilots out there.

Could someone explain for the lay people exactly what they are trying to pull here? And why

Funny and frustrating just about sums it up. On top of that add scary !! I don't think that crew had a clue what was going on through out this. Maybe preoccupied, maybe inexperience but it sounds like they had no idea of what was happening around them. Wow good stuff lol

I’m not a pilot, but I love these.

Would of been cool seeing a gulfstream at 1000ft! Concerned passengers likely though