"Refusing to Handle You"

"Dave S" wrote in message And if "standing your
ground" results in a hold in current position
until you choose to land, reverse course, or accept the offered routing,
then what?

I suppose anything is possible but that is highly unlikely. In any event,
the proper response is to state "Unable" and then wait to see what the
controller says. Most likely the controller will then offer to work with
you with a hold and/or vectors around traffic that will more or less be
equivalent to the route you need. Now I agree the controller might instead
come back not with a terse "Potomac will not accept you" but rather "There
has been a major incident and BWI is closed" or something catastrophic like
that, in which case yes, landing might be your only option. But 99% of the
time "Unable" will indeed prompt ATC to come up with another plan.

If you declare an "emergency" then the expectation is that you will land
at the nearest suitable airport.

I am not at all proposing to declare an emergency. I am proposing the pilot
fly his clearance and not accept any alternate clearance which he feels is
unsafe. There is nothing of an emergency nature here.

There is no reason the posting pilot couldn't have landed and waited the
weather out.

ATC would have to give me a good reason for me to do that -- the reason
would have to be more than "Potomac is not accepting traffic."


What if the area of unavailable airspace was a hot MOA or Restricted area?

Then ATC would have to contact the relevant military aircraft and make the
airspace cold if weather requires their airspace to be used for traffic
already on an IFR clearance.

I've been rerouted enroute because of an area going hot after i

No problem if there are no weather or other reasons to preclude your
reroute. I am not saying to decline the new clearance arbitrarily -- only
to decline it if there are weather concerns.

whats available), turn back or land. The controller cant offer what he
doesnt have available.

If you tell the controller you are "Unable" to accept an alternate route, he
may well be able to negotiate for more airspace to become available.

Bottom line: A clearance is a clearance. You must accept an assigned
revised clearance if it is within your capability, but if you judge the
revised clearance to be unsafe there is no reason why you need to accept it
and instead ATC will work with you to find a solution.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com