Impact on safety

In aviation operations, where every eventuality is seemingly provided for and yet the unexpected happens, language is in a very real sense the final safety net. Accidents never have a single cause. To apply James Reason's Swiss cheese model, a whole series of safety barriers has been set up in aviation to prevent an accident occurring and to contain the effects of any failure or human error. Yet every barrier has a chink. It is when the chinks in all the barriers somehow become lined up that the unthinkable happens. Language communication accompanies most of these barriers to make them more effective: pilot to pilot, pilot to controller, pilot to cabin crew.

For much of any flight pilots rely almost totally on their ears to acquire what is called 'situational awareness', i.e. knowledge of the environment in which they are flying and into which they will fly: the weather, obstacles and other aircraft. Conversely, air traffic controllers on the ground rely entirely on their ears to know what is happening to and on each flight. Standard ICAO phraseology allows pilots and controllers to manage movements and situations most of the time in the most concise, regulated and unequivocal manner. However, many unexpected, non-routine situations need to be managed using plain language.

The importance of effective oral communication is compounded by the growth in the volume of international air travel and the cosmopolitan nature of the staff involved. Emirates Airlines employ some 65 different nationalities in their flight crew. On an international flight, a pilot will be confronted with controllers speaking English with different accents and degrees of proficiency.

In a nutshell, to enhance safety is why ICAO, the world's regulating body for aviation, moved to define standards for the language used by the operational community and enforce the ongoing assessment of language proficiency. To quote from the Holistic descriptors in the appendix to Annex 1 of the ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (ICAO Doc. 9835 Appendix A2):

'Proficient speakers shall:

communicate effectively in voice-only (telephone / radiotelephone) and in face-to-face

situations; communicate on common, concrete and work-related topics with accuracy and

clarity; use appropriate strategies to exchange messages and to recognize and resolve

misunderstandings (e.g. to check, confirm or clarify information) in a general or work-

related context; 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 use a dialect or accent which is intelligible to the aeronautical community.'

The obligation for all pilots flying internationally and air traffic controllers handling international traffic to demonstrate through a testing process approved by their national civil aviation authorities that they have attained at least ICAO Operation Level 4 certainly acts as a powerful force driving up standards of spoken English in the aviation community world wide. Indeed, in Europe and elsewhere, as regional legislation is brought into line with ICAO requirements, the trend is to aim at higher levels of proficiency.

This will mean that pilots and controllers will be better prepared to deal effectively with the potentially hazardous situations with which they may be confronted and that generally speaking there will be greater awareness in the industry of the essential part played by language in the communication-technical-human factors equation.

Had the controller working in dense fog in the Canaries in 1977 had greater linguistic confidence and sensitivity, perhaps he would have challenged the Dutch pilot to clarify his statement 'We are at take-off'. He would then have realized that the Dutch plane was not ready for take-off, as he expected and had instructed, but had begun its take-off roll. If the South American pilot in New York in 1990 had been able to make clear by use of paraphrase just how low on fuel they were, and if the American controller had asked for clarification, perhaps history would have been different.

This illustrates how aviation English proficiency testing has probably the highest stakes of all language testing in that inadequate or inappropriate testing could result in professionals with poor communicational skills representing a potential hazard for the ever-growing millions of members of the travelling public.

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