Professional Pilot, May 2017

Video reconstruction of March 27 1977 Tenerife disaster between KLM and Pan Am B747s where 583 people perished Worlds deadliest aviation accident occurred in part because of a misunderstanding between the KLM captain and ATC on takeoff clearance in dense fog This sad event helped coax the industry into CRM and standardized ATC terminology efforts PROFESSIONAL PILOT May 2017 91 ing can quickly become more difficult when flying to international destinations where English is a secondary language for pilots or controllers Language barrier can contribute to an accident Several examples demonstrate how a language barrier can be causal or contributory in an incident or accident The most infamous is the Tenerife disaster which occurred 40 years ago It resulted in 583 fatalities when 2 747s collided during a takeoff attempt in the Canary Islands Spain The primary language of the air traffic controller was Spanish The pilots taking off spoke Dutch whereas the crew of the aircraft that was back taxiing spoke English Another notable event was the off airport landing of Avionca 52 as a result of running out of fuel while conducting multiple approaches to JFK in 1989 The NTSB identified a language problem and included it as a probable cause in the form of failure to communicate an emergency fuel situation to Air Traffic Control before fuel exhaustion occurred In 1995 AA Flight 965 impacted mountainous terrain 38 miles north of Cali Colombia while attempting an approach to Runway 19 The Colombian authorities highlighted a crew navigational mistake but interviews with the air traffic controller handling the flight revealed a startling gap in English proficiency When uncertainty arose about the position of the aircraft the controller lacked the ability to query the crew in a manner that may have helped reveal the navigational error that preceded the CFIT accident A series of communication related events perpetuated by foreign pilots within US borders prompted Congress to request an investigation in 2000 An analysis of 309 pilot deviations between 1997 and 2000 showed that 5 were directly attributable to language or phraseology issues The number may seem trivial but even a single event can beget a tragedy Contrary to what pilots may have been told in international procedures training English was never formally made the official language of aviation when ICAO was formed at the Chicago convention in 1944 It makes a good story that if it werent for 1 vote US pilots would be speaking French during international operations But this is simply not true What actually happened at the 1st meeting of ICAO was that delegates made a recommendation that English be universally used for all aeronautical radiotelephony It was only a recommendation so in reality countries were free to do what they wanted with their sovereign airspace It wasnt until 2003 that the 1st documents denoting English as the default language of aviation were produced by ICAO Shortly thereafter the requirement to annotate English Proficient on pilot certificates came into existence which had to be completed by March 2008 The governing document is ICAO Annex 10 Volume II which prescribes that if pilots and controllers both speak a common language other than English its okay to use it If not they should revert to English This explains why multiple languages are commonly heard on aviation frequencies eg French in Montreal or Spanish in Cancun The trigger is whats used on initial contact so caution is warranted Remember that although tossing out a rudimentary greeting in the native language of the controller may seem innocuous and courteous a pilot may find himself on the receiving end of a barrage of instructions in a language hes not fluent in Sorting it out takes time which congests bandwidth In a crew situation if 1 pilot is bilingual and the other is not the best practice is to communicate with ATC in a language all parties understand The practical procedure is to speak English and use ICAO standard phraseology The ICAO English requirement has been refined over the last 2 decades and now the current iteration calls for using ICAO standard phraseology in all situations for which it has been specified However theres a twist According to the latest directive when standard communication wont get the job done delving into plain language is warranted But therein lays a substantial pitfall Pilots with significant international experience can attest that an interaction with a controller whose native language is not English is highly scripted Its analogous to a foreign based telemarketer that calls with a predetermined set of paragraphs and phrases but quickly gets confused and stymied once the recipient deviates from the programmed litany The methodology even has an industry name Aviation English AE Linguists define AE as a bridge or trade language in that its only used for a specific and technical purpose So fluency in AE but not in Standard English could be problematic ICAO defines 6 levels of English competency A higher number represents greater mastery Level 6 is considered expert but achieving level 4 is considered qualified for aeronautical communications According to the ICAO matrix a person speaking at level 4 would have the following characteristics pronunciation stress rhythm and intonation are influenced by the 1st language or regional variation but only sometimes interfere with ease of understanding Using the literal definition one could make an argument that a Boston Logan ground controller that tersely instructs a pilot to park on the taxiway near the water until half past the hour is incomprehensible to a pilot from China operating at level 4 Theres still some slack in the system so theres room for improvement especially since entities providing AE training are unregulated But the ICAO English standard provides an expectation and a baseline Adding modern technology to the mix in the form of CPDLC can provide an additional layer of defense