Pilots with poor English risk disaster in our skies
PILOTS who speak English poorly are endangering passengers and risking disaster, a report has warned.
The review found there are pilots flying in British airspace who ‘appear to lack the minimum proficiency in English’.
The problem is compounded by the poor English language skills of air traffic controllers outside Britain, particularly in France and Spain, who are supposed to speak English to international pilots, the alarming report found.
There is evidence of cheating on exams and inadequate testing – with pilots granted certificates in ‘sweetheart deals’ with examiners.
To obtain a licence, pilots and controllers have to achieve Level 4 English in an exam system run by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a UN agency. This means they can speak with ‘accuracy’ and ‘clarity’ in aviation terminology, resolve misunderstandings and also react to unexpected events.
The report found non-UK pilots and controllers with below-standard English skills and ‘grounds to suspect cheating on aviation English exams’. In one country pilots were said to be certified after just ten days’ tuition.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) review also identified ‘grounds to suspect that some nonnative English speakers are not being tested and are granted Level 4 certificates on “sweetheart deals” (handshakes, via friends, etc)’.
The researchers noted one startling potential reason for the corrupt deals – the importance of ‘sav- ing face’ in some cultures, where candidates cheat to avoid the embarrassment of mispronunciation and forgetting vocabulary.
The report also found ICAO levels of language proficiency, especially Level 4, are ‘not robust enough to ensure appropriately clear pilot/ controller communication’.
The CAA report was commissioned over concerns that a lack of fluency in English, the international standard for aviation, could lead to accidents over Britain and abroad.
It identified 267 incidents related to miscommunication in UK-based aviation over an 18-month period. Around 2million passenger planes fly in and out of the UK each year.
In one case, a pilot taxied on to a runway at a Midlands airport without clearance. Another case involved confusion over left and right on the approach to Manchester airport.
There were also examples of pilots switching to Spanish or French over Spain and France, and the report suggested English-speaking pilots were getting ‘lazy’ and not using the correct terminology to speak to air traffic controllers.
The report said: ‘For the safety of the UK travelling public, it is imperative that all pilots and controllers working in international aviation have the proficiency to communicate clearly and succinctly in all situations, routine and non-routine.’
It warned: ‘Language-related miscommunication, including lack of ICAO proficiency standards, certainly has the potential to be the cause of serious incidents.’
The report, by consultant linguist Dr Barbara Clark, made recommendations including more spot checks, better reporting of incidents where language was an issue and a crackdown on cheats.
‘Evidence of cheating on exams’