Command of English Would Have Prevented Brazil's Worst Air Tragedy Ever

[Judi Lynn]

Command of English Would Have Prevented Brazil's Worst Air Tragedy Ever
Written by Kelly Oliveira
Tuesday, 20 February 2007

Brazil's worst air accident ever, on September 29, 2006, when an executive Legacy jet piloted by two Americans collided with a Boeing 737 over the Brazilian Amazon resulting in the death of 154 people, might have been prevented if only the Brazilian flight controllers who were monitoring the smaller plane had command of the English language.

This is the understanding of Ulisses Fontenele, the former president of the ABCTA (Associação Brasileira dos Controladores de Tráfego Aéreo - Brazilian Air Traffic Controllers Association). He has called attention to the fact that less than 10% of the about 2,500 flight controllers working in Brazil are able to speak English fluently. And according to Fontenele, those who speak the language do it because they learned English on their own initiative.

He believes that the US pilots Joseph Lepore and Jan Paladino and the personnel at Brasília's control tower had a hard time understanding each other. For Fontenele, there was a series of mistakes that culminated in the collision. He compared what happened to the domino effect (in which a single piece knocks down hundreds of others) and said that the tragedy might have been avoided if a single error in the sequence had not been made.

"If there was no trouble with the English when they took off there would be no accident. But there was an endless number of errors. If only one of them had been eliminated we wouldn't have any accident," he stated.
(snip/...)

http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/7917/54/





Published excerpts of air crash create stir in Brazil
BY BILL BLEYER
[e-mail]

February 19, 2007, 8:38 PM EST

The publication of excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder on the private jet flown by two Long Island pilots involved in Brazil's worst aviation disaster has rekindled passions there, with some media repeating their early contention that the Americans' recklessness caused the collision that brought down a commercial jet.

But ExcelAire of Ronkonkoma, the company that owns the Legacy business jet flown by Joseph Lepore, 42, of Bay Shore, and Jan Paladino, 34, of Westhampton Beach, said in a statement Monday that the excerpts printed in a Sao Paulo newspaper Sunday had been improperly translated from English into Portuguese, taken out of context or misconstrued.

The publication of excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder on the private jet flown by two Long Island pilots involved in Brazil's worst aviation disaster has rekindled passions there, with some media repeating their early contention that the Americans' recklessness caused the collision that brought down a commercial jet.

But ExcelAire of Ronkonkoma, the company that owns the Legacy business jet flown by Joseph Lepore, 42, of Bay Shore, and Jan Paladino, 34, of Westhampton Beach, said in a statement Monday that the excerpts printed in a Sao Paulo newspaper Sunday had been improperly translated from English into Portuguese, taken out of context or misconstrued.
(snip/...)

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-librazil0220,0,1842152.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

[PaulaFarrell]

1. or command of Portuguese by the American pilots?

I once listened to an exchange between an American pilot and British air traffic control when coming in to land - for some reason it was available on one of the channles on the headset - and the pilot couldn't understand the controller. It would have been funny if it wasn't a little scary.

[Toucano]

2. Exactly.

The burden is on the rest of the world to learn English?

Very strange idea.

[panzerfaust]

8. Yes

Think about it for a moment, and you will see why this makes sense. There are hundreds of languages.

English was accepted long ago by IACO as the standard: Even the controllers at CDG (Paris: Charles de Gaulle) use English. When flights (American, British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Mexican, etc) communicate with Havana Center, they do so in English.

Only, episodically, do some controllers in Quebec violate this standard - and they do so to the detriment of aviation safety.

It is best if an airport’s control tower does not become The Tower of Babel

[Bassic]

11. Eumm..

"Only, episodically, do some controllers in Quebec violate this standard - and they do so to the detriment of aviation safety."


French air controlers in Québec speak French to French pilots only, not to anyone else. There is no threat to aviation safety.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

14. Ask a pilot flying in that airspace who has no idea at what altitude other aircraft are moving.

Very dangerous as pilots need to know where to look for aircraft and when to start looking for them. Can't depend on the controler to call out traffic everytime, and obviously can't depend on TCAS to do it either.

[panzerfaust]

15. Negative: It does compromise air safety.

It compromises air safety because it decreases situational awareness. This is because you develop a mental picture of what other traffic is doing from listening to what is being said on the frequency to and by other aircraft.

By listening-up, you know what to actually expect for the approach, you know when someone is being told to climb towards you, or is being cleared to your altitude, you hear when an aircraft has been told to taxi onto the active, you know when the aircraft behind has a twenty-knot overtake on you ... you have situational awareness.

I live where about a third of the traffic is Mexican Airlines. If those flights were spoken to in Spanish (or Mexican), and the rest in English ... oh yes, and French for the one Air France flight a day, and German for Lufthansa's bi-weekly ... then it would only lead to loss of situational awareness, to decreased safety, for everyone.

Besides, it is not French, it is Québécois, a variant of French which I have heard even French pilots say is difficult for them to understand.

ALPA (Airline Pilots Association) has several times complained about the needless loss of SA flying into major terminals in Quebec. This is not a constant, and the use of Québécois waxes and wanes seemingly with the passion of Parti Québécois.

Bottom line is that the less situational awareness flightcrews have, the more likely is a tragedy to occur. Separatism, even nationalism, should not trump safety.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

18. Exactly.

Who cares what language, it could have been Swahili for all anyone cared. The important point is that it had to be a COMMON language to keep the pilots aware of their surroundings and allow for efficient communication with controllers and other pilots.

[Bassic]

25. Québécois and French are the same language.

Some French people have a hard time understanding the accent with which it is spoken in Québec, that is true. Other than that, the differences are about the same as the differences between American English and British English.

As to the rest of your argument, I defer to your knowledge.

[panzerfaust]

29. Not trying to be a pedant, and is not the point.

However Wikipedia does define 'québécois' (With a lower-case 'q') as a 'variant' of the French language. What counts as a 'varient', I do not really know.

Was just going by what a French friend of mine who flys for Bombardier has said. Which is that he cannot understand them, and always requests transmissions in English when going into YMX:Mirabel (Yes, he is a freight dog). But, would someone from Paris admit to understanding someone from Toulouse, much less someone from Montreal?

The point is, Quebec is, as best I know, the only region in the developed world where one of the local languages is used, instead of (a strictly defined and limited subset of) English, for ATC (Air Traffic Control). Doing so degrades the situational awareness of all the aircraft on frequency, and decreases air-safety. As noted ALPA has repeatedly complained about this.

I see this as a high price for regional pride.

[Bassic]

32. As I said, I defer to your knowledge on the rest of the argument.

The position that I expressed was acquired after reading the history of the whole battle that allowed air controlers and pilots to speak French. And it's not just a question of regional pride, but to go into the historical and social details of this would be lengthy and beside the point.

I did, however, feel it necessary to point out that the language of Québec is French. Some of the French, because they have a hard time with the Québécois accent, like to say that it is a different language, but except for some superficial differences, it is the same. Saying it is not is akin to saying that we are not conversing in English right now, but in American, a variant of English.

I realize that this was not the point of your post, to which I see the logic, nor am I trying to be an ass. If I'm coming off as rude or petty I apologize, but as a Québeker myself I felt that I must comment on this. Rest assured, I'm not looking for a pointless flame war.

[flyingfysh]

9. if a Chinese plane lands at a Russian airport

The pilots and controllers speak English. That's the aviation standard.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

13. If you want to be a pilot it is.

N/T

[Bluebear]

28. Not strange if they want to pilot aircraft.

I am totally a multicultural guy but English is *the* language of international aviation.

[Eugene]

3. Air traffic control is in "pilot's English." It is an international standard.

Pilots and controllers are expected to understand and use a specific subset
of the English language relating to aviation.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Oh, yeah? Absolutely did not know. Thank you. n/t

[wakeme2008]

5. Also the markings inside an airplane will always be in English plus the

language of the country of the plane.

For example all safety warnings inside the Soviet era passenger jet I was in, in 93 were in Russian/English...

[Judi Lynn]

6. I had assumed this was only in the countries with the most traffic from the U.S.

Would never have expected to hear this applies in Russia.

[dddem]

7. Thank you for pointing that out.

My first reaction was that we Americans are very arrogant to assume that we should go into other countries (or their airspace) expecting to be spoken to in our language instead of the other way around.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. You were probably flying United.

They put the ATC exchanges through on channel 9 of their audio program. At least they seem to do that on all of their transatlantic flights.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

12. And exactly how many languages should an international pilot be proficent in?

The standard is English (Aviation English) b/c that was the largest ATC system when the standard was developed.

The standards committee made a smart move in picking ONE language that all pilots can communicate in wherever they are rather than listening to a bunch of languages they can't understand.

[panzerfaust]

17. Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo: At least a Dozen Languages?

Then if you go Tokyo direct London, it must be a half-a-dozen more.

Get out the Berlitz Books!

[Thothmes]

16. English

It is not only aviation that uses English as a standard of communications. Voice traffic on bridge to bridge radios on ships is in English.

[AngryAmish]

19. What we need is code talking controllers

That way virtually no pilots would understand the communications and thus encouraging everyone to keep their eyes open. Pilots would be less arrogant that way.

[panzerfaust]

20. Would be MORE, not less, arrogant :)

As then safe arrivals would be totally due to those with the eyes of eagles, reflexes of a snake, and nerves of steel.

But even eagle eyes cannot see in solid IMC ... inside a cloud.

Hearing, and understanding, are still very important.

[AngryAmish]

21. I think air travel has become boring and routine

Nothing like racing a 747 to land first and making them do a fly-by like in Top Gun.

[panzerfaust]

26. So True

When I was a kid I lived on an island in one of the Great Lakes. The airline used Ford Tri-motors - which were old even then.

Those days, they still ran the engines up even with PIBs (People In Back: Passengers) aboard prior to attempting takeoff. On one of the planes, the starboard engine would periodically backfire and burst into flames when this was done.

The copilot (sorry, First Officer) would quickly haul his ass out of the cockpit and blast the engine down with an extinguisher. When it cooled enough, after looking to make sure no important wires had burned off, it would be restarted and the take-off would proceed. If something important had been burned up, we would bump back over the grass field to the tin-roofed hanger so it could be patched up enough for the trip.

Then there was the time we dropped out of the clouds (on what must have been an NDB approach) to see the Perry International Peace Memorial filling the windscreen. There was no copilot on that flight, and my mother was in the right seat. Expect the pilot was a bit distracted. We got right back up into the clouds though.

Must mention the time we landed on the frozen lake next to startled ice-fishermen, as all airports in the area were fogged in and there was not enough fuel to go anywhere else, and then there was ...

Well, Yes. Flying used to be FUN, at least exciting, even as a PIB.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

22. What makes you say pilots are arrogant?

Because they know how to do something you don't?

[AngryAmish]

23. Every time you think you don't need the sarcasm thingy...

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

24. LOL my bad.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

27. I Thought English Was The Universal Language For Stuff Like That? I'm Surprised They Didn't Know It.

[panzerfaust]

30. So were the passengers.

It is easy enough to screw the pooch when pilots/controllers are speaking ONE language.

[judaspriestess]

31. As far as I was told by pilots when I was a flight attendant

the universal code or language was English.

And if you have ever watched stories about flight disasters including from other parts of the world, you hear the pilots and air traffic control speaking English.