Narrative:

Clearing customs at mia. I called to confirm the procedure and; in accordance with their instructions; I parked right outside the customs office to clear. Once inside; I was advised our aircraft was too large to be parked there and I would need to be towed off of the ramp to another area. I called a tug and was moved off of the spot without incident. Later; I discovered that there was a NOTAM published 9 years ago restricting our size plane from operating on that particular ramp. Being that old; it is not on the list of notams that I get from our flight planning provider. Even so; there is a note on the airport diagram that should have clued me in to not being able to park where I did; but it is very confusing and neither myself nor the other pilot realized what it meant. The note reads 'aircraft with wingspan greater than 78 ft are prohibited from parking on the general aviation center ramp.' it was our assumption that this meant the FBO ramp since they have a space restricted area and a much larger area. It did not occur to us that the customs ramp and the general aviation center were one in the same. Ground also did not notify us of a different parking area when we advised we were parking at customs. In addition to all of that; the ramp is very dark and if there was a sign stating such a limitation it was not conspicuous enough. Contributing factors I feel were customs and ground not advising us of the limitation; the confusing note on the airport diagram; and the AFD as well as the fact that long term notams aren't included in the usual briefings pilots get as well as the poor signage/lighting on the ramp.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Corporate Captain reported that parking outside of the MIA customs office was not authorized due to the size of the aircraft.

Narrative: Clearing customs at MIA. I called to confirm the procedure and; in accordance with their instructions; I parked right outside the customs office to clear. Once inside; I was advised our aircraft was too large to be parked there and I would need to be towed off of the ramp to another area. I called a tug and was moved off of the spot without incident. Later; I discovered that there was a NOTAM published 9 years ago restricting our size plane from operating on that particular ramp. Being that old; it is not on the list of NOTAMs that I get from our flight planning provider. Even so; there is a note on the airport diagram that should have clued me in to not being able to park where I did; but it is very confusing and neither myself nor the other pilot realized what it meant. The note reads 'aircraft with wingspan greater than 78 ft are prohibited from parking on the general aviation center ramp.' It was our assumption that this meant the FBO ramp since they have a space restricted area and a much larger area. It did not occur to us that the customs ramp and the general aviation center were one in the same. Ground also did not notify us of a different parking area when we advised we were parking at customs. In addition to all of that; the ramp is very dark and if there was a sign stating such a limitation it was not conspicuous enough. Contributing factors I feel were customs and ground not advising us of the limitation; the confusing note on the airport diagram; and the AFD as well as the fact that long term NOTAMs aren't included in the usual briefings pilots get as well as the poor signage/lighting on the ramp.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.