Hi Doug

In Canada, if you open a flight plan, you have to close it.
When you think about it, closing it is the only way to tell FSS that you
arrived, as opposed to your being spread over a mountain - and if you
are - you want CASARA launching right now - you don't really want them
saying, well maybe he just forgot!

Flying within Canada, if we are arriving at a towered airport we can ask
them to close it. If we are arriving at a non-towered airport we can
close from the air via FSS or we can close by telephone on the ground.

But in all of these scenarios, we cannot just ignore it and assume that
someone closed it for us. That is absolutely our responsibility to do
that and without that the whole system just falls down.

We have heard over the past few weeks that there have been several
instances where US Customs have refused to close flight plans. That
should be a concern to everyone on both sides of the border - the flight
plan only exists to protect you the pilot - but for now the only real
failsafe is for you to make sure that the plan is closed.

That's about all that I can tell you.

HTH

Tony

--

Tony Roberts
PP-ASEL
VFR OTT
Night
Cessna 172H C-GICE



In article .com,
"Doug" wrote:

I just flew back from Canada. As required, I filed a Canadian flight
plan and contacted US Customs (I cleared Customs at Sault St. Marie,
Michigan). No one said anything about me having to close my flight plan
with USA flight service (and come to think of it, I never have closed
the other times I've landed). There is no flight service frequency that
I could find at Sault St Marie. Anyway, after clearing customs, I
called FSS. My flight plan had been closed! Does US Customs call US FSS
and close my flight plan? What happens if I don't show up? Will I get
Canadian search and rescue? No one at FSS seems to know. The FSS guy
seemed to think I was responsible for closing my flight plan, yet I've
never done it before either.

Anyone know how this is working?