Bad Engrish?

Shirl:
The question couldn't GET any more basic than that, and even after
asking four times, the guy *did not understand* that it was a
*question*, NOT a clearance.

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Missed that one. Again, there are NO questions asked by changing
inflection in standard phraseology. The proper way would have been
"confirm you have been cleared..." or something like that.

Yes, he could have, but he shouldn't have to rephrase his questions just
to cater to someone who clearly *does not understand* English well
enough to answer a VERY basic question asked of him by an air traffic
controller. The controller is speaking plain, clear English; the pilot
didn't understand him. It's ultimately the controller's responsibility
to handle it, but that doesn't absolve the pilot from the requirement
that he *understands* English.

On 2007-06-29 08:58:49 -0700, Thomas Borchert
said:

Shirl,

How much more standard can it get than, "Were you cleared to the ramp?"


It's an easy sentence, agreed. However, it is NOT a sentence in the AIM
nor the Pilot/Controller Glossary or the ICAO standard phraseology. It is
also not the proper way to phrase a question in standard phraseology. It
is plain English, but that doesn't help a foreigner trained to expect
standard aviation phraseology. And THAT is exactly what standard
phraseology is for.

So, to sum up: It's a non-standard phrase and a non-standard way to ask
something. How much LESS standard can it get?

So what would have been the standard way to ask if he had been cleared
to the ramp?
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On 2007-06-29 12:29:15 -0700, Thomas Borchert
said:

Mxsmanic,

The AIM and glossary do not provide sentences, only sentence fragments (with
rare exceptions).

Read them (again)!

If the foreigner can understand English, he can understand "non-standard"
phrases.

He is not required to understand general English, he is required to understand
aviation English and standard phraseology.

That is not what the regulations say. He is required to understand
English. Believe it or not, people have to be able to talk to pilots.
It is impossible to have a book with every possible phrase that might
be needed in aviation.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

Thomas Borchert wrote:
It's an easy sentence, agreed. However, it is NOT a sentence in the AIM
nor the Pilot/Controller Glossary or the ICAO standard phraseology. It is
also not the proper way to phrase a question in standard phraseology. It
is plain English, but that doesn't help a foreigner trained to expect
standard aviation phraseology. And THAT is exactly what standard
phraseology is for.

So, to sum up: It's a non-standard phrase and a non-standard way to ask
something. How much LESS standard can it get?

The reg is that you can speak, read, write, and understand English. It
doesn't specify that you only have to know how to understand and respond
to standard phraseology. Understanding English covers the whole
language, not just aviation phraseology.

On 2007-06-28 23:31:51 -0700, "Richard" said:


"Dallas" wrote in message
...

Scary.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDEIvjwaFU


Bad situation but I was amused that the person who produced the video felt
it necessary to provide subtitles for the ATC as well.



Heh, heh. So did the person who produced this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avcYjTVM7d0
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

In article . com,
wrote:

Air China had an incident (I think it was in the late 80's) involving
a 747 bound for LA. The plane lost its outboard engine in flight, and
while the pilots were distracted with the engine shutdown checklist,
the plane slowed down as the autopilot struggled to deal with the
adverse yaw and began to pitch up and apply aileron to attempt to stay
straight and level. By the time the Captain noticed the problem, the
plane had slowed way down. The captain disengaged the autopilot and
applied rudder to straighten out of the nose, which caused a cross-
control situation and an immediate stall. The 747 abruptly snap-
rolled into a split-S, pulling over 10Gs in the process. Damage
included a twisted engine pylon, a crumpled aileron, loss of several
feet of the horizontal stabilizer, and numerous popped rivits. The
damage to the tail was symmetrical.

The pilots regained their orientation as they passed through a cloud
deck at 10,000 feet and recovered to climb back to altitude, unaware
of the extent of the damage to the plane. The controllers contacted
them to see if they were OK (due to the large and sudden altitude
excursion), and they said that they were. Asked if they wanted to
divert to San Francisco, they opted to continue to LA until they were
informed that at least one of the PAX had been injured.

Upon arrival at San Francisco, the FAA impounded the plane to conduct
an investigation, and the Boeing AOG team couldn't touch it until
after almost a month had passed while the investigation was
conducted.

The 747 does not have a G meter. They determined the G force of the
snap-roll by the fact that the flight data recorded had stopped laying
down data during the roll. Concluding that the head had pulled away
from the tape in the data recorder, they put the unit in a centrifuge
and spun it until the head pulled away from the tape at about 10Gs.

The Air China captain didn't understand what had happened until the
tapes were replayed in a simulator, at which point he was reportedly
quite shocked.

I originally heard the story from Jack Hessburg, chief mechanic on the
777 program in an air-carrier operations class that he gave at
Boeing. I also saw a segment on this incident on a TV documentary a
year or two ago...

I saw the plane sitting at SFO after the incident. It was a B747SP and
China Airlines. Both horizontal stabilizers were shredded! You could see
chromated metal parts sticking out!

On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:34:07 -0700, C J Campbell wrote:

That is not what the regulations say. He is required to understand
English.

The ICAO will require as of March of 2008, that all pilots flying
internationally and all Air Traffic Controllers must pass the ICAO level 4
language standards exam for English proficiency.

In this case:
d. handle successfully and with relative ease the linguistic challenges
presented by a complication or unexpected turn of events that occurs within
the context of a routine work situation or communicative task with which
they are otherwise familiar; and

e. use a dialect or accent which is intelligible to the aeronautical
community.


Details:
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/trivia/peltrgFAQ.htm#20

--
Dallas

Thomas Borchert writes:

Read them (again)!

Reading them again will not change what they say.

He is not required to understand general English, he is required to understand
aviation English and standard phraseology.

There is no difference between the two, unfortunately.

This is similar to the illusion that there exists a "business English" that is
somehow easier to learn than standard English. In fact, there is no such
thing--English is English--but language schools promote the illusion because
it brings in more customers (who mistakenly believe that they can get away
with learning something "simple" instead of standard English to communicate).

Thomas Borchert writes:

Missed that one. Again, there are NO questions asked by changing
inflection in standard phraseology. The proper way would have been
"confirm you have been cleared..." or something like that.

The pilot still would not have understood, because he could not speak English.

Thomas Borchert writes:

Yes, there is. I know instructors in Paris.

So do I, and there is no correlation.