NOTAM checklist common errors

It’s that time of the month where we see the issue of checklist of NOTAM, they are very useful to be able to clean up our NOTAM database but unfortunately we still have several countries not compliant with ICAO SARPS

1. Checklist are issued as replacement NOTAMs and not as NOTAMN, this causes problems with the new automated systems which won’t recognise the NOTAMN and will not be able to crosscheck and validate automatically the NOTAM database

Comment by JOD: Yes, ALL checklists except the first one in a new NOTAM serie shall be NOTAMR. This because there shall be only one checklist valid per series at any point in time. Cancelling a checklist and publishing a new one as NOTAMN shall NOT happen

2. The format for the Checklist for how to display the NOTAM per year is

YEAR=2019 1013 1014 1024

YEAR=2018 2342 2934 3420

not

2019: 1013 1014 1024

2018: 2342 2934 3420

The second format will also cause issues with your colleagues as the NOTAM will not enter directly into the database for crosschecking of the information but into a queue for fixing. Plus you are not following ICAO standard and recommended practices. Just for completeness this is ICAO SARPs extracted

Comment by JOD: All NOTAM that are valid [Publication Time to Item C time, ref. Doc 8126] at Item B) time SHALL be listed in the checklist. No exceptions!

3. Item C should have the word EST added

Comment by JOD: Item C) SHALL contain EST, to ensure that one checklist is valid at any point in time. All readers must be aware that so-called ‘outdated EST NOTAM’ are not really outdated. They do NOT self-expire, but stay VALID in databases until they are replaced or cancelled

4. Finally the latest publication is to provide only well the latest one and is not intended for a checklist of publications (for this we have a different way of providing the current AIC and SUP)

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The following items where added by in kind contributions of JOD (blue) all images & my comments in black

(5) First line in Item E) shall only contain the word ‘CHECKLIST’.

Text like ‘CHECKLIST OF SERIES A NOTAM VALID ON 01-SEP-2019 AT 00:00 UTC’ is not necessary, and from a database perspective totally useless, as that information is given in Item B).

The monthly checklist is actually a snapshot of the NOTAM situation at Item B) time. On top of that, the checklist NOTAM is not intended for PIBs, so no pilots will ever read such NOTAM.

Ok this one I don’t get, if you have an automated system for sure you would need to correct NOTAMs that come from other NOF because of this specific thing unless the system parses it (Looks for the keyword ‘CHECKLIST’ then looks for the keyword ‘YEAR=YYYY’ and forgives the extra non-sense)

(6) Cancelling a NOTAM by omitting it from the monthly checklist IS NOT ALLOWED!

This was for many years stated in Annex 15, and now it is stated in Doc 10066 PANS-AIM. But we see this many times every month, ever since the EAD started operations in 2003.

(7) Even if one or more NOTAM are cancelled by AIP AMDT/AIP AIRAC AMDT, the fact that they are listed on the AMDT cover pages does NOT serve to cancel the NOTAM. NOTAMC shall be published.

(8) Publishing a Series A NOTAM containing a Series B checklist shall not happen. The checklist shall be published as a Series B NOTAM.

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So go read you ICAO documents, check that you are doing things correctly, contact your vendor if you need to change things but I hope that your next checklist in October has less errors and is closer to ICAO SARPs.

Also maybe its time to update your staff with some training and standard operating procedures.

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Edit: Original post was enhanced with contributions from the following persons through the Facebook Global AIS/AIM Forum

• Hatem Jaouadi (HJ)
• Jan-Ove Digernes (JOD)