Pilots please remember to close your flight plans!

Flight Service has no sense of humor when it comes to forgetting to close a flight plan, and for good reason. When an aircraft is overdue by 1 hour they will notify search and rescue. Within 1 hour after that a Hercules C-130 will be in the air looking for you. Figure the cost of a C-130 to be at least $20,000/hour. Never mind disrupting a crew from their daily exercises. They will be more then grumpy if you “just forgot about your flight plan”.

Not long ago, 4 students in one day forgot to close their flight plan. The problem was way out of hand. Also a couple of students forgot to close their flight plans at night meaning that FSS would call me at 2 am and force me to get up in the middle of the night and check to see if the airplane was back or not. The attitude was way too casual toward closing flight plans. Needless to say FSS was not impressed.

There are signs on the door reminding you. You’ve done your flight planning. We’ve been pleading and begging with student pilots to remember to close their flight plans. We couldn’t continue this way. So regreatfully for now we’ve had to put in a $100 fine to remind students to close their flight plans. Thankfully it’s cut down students forgetting to close their flight plans by 95%. The bottom line on all of this. PLEASE remember to close your flight plan.