Say Again? Speaking In Plane English

ICAO Ups Ante For ATC Lingo

Presume you're a pilot. If somebody was to ask you, in halting English: "How have the English language requirements for pilots and air traffic controllers changed?" would you know what to tell them? Well, the times they are a changing -- and so are the requirements for communicating clearly in aviation's common tongue.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a division of the United Nations, announced changes in September 2003 to its language proficiency requirements. These provisions will come into effect less than a year from now on March 5, 2008.

What the changes essentially mean is that for the first time, all pilots operating on international routes and all air traffic controllers who communicate with foreign pilots will need to have their English language proficiency formally assessed.

The ICAO language competency requirement expects pilots and air traffic controllers to be able to communicate clearly and intelligibly using both ICAO phraseology (ICAO Doc. 9832) and plain English (ICAO Doc. 9835).

There are now six rating levels of language proficiency as far as ICAO is concerned:

• ICAO Level 6: Expert

• ICAO Level 5: Extended

• ICAO Level 4: Operational

• ICAO Level 3: Pre-Operational

• ICAO Level 2: Elementary

• ICAO Level 1: Pre-Elementary

For licensing purposes, you'll need a minimum of Language Level 4. To be assessed at ICAO's Level 4 or above, a pilot or air traffic controller must achieve that Level 4 in all six of the ICAO skill areas: Pronunciation, Structure, Vocabulary, Fluency, Comprehension and Interactions. So, if a test candidate is assessed as ICAO Level 4 in five of the six skill areas, but ICAO Level 3 in just one area, then the standard reached is ICAO Level 3.

Level 4's will face requalification at least every two years. ICAO has available a speech CD that demonstrates Levels 3, 4 and 5 with an accompanying rationale for each.

The new policy has come about as a result of a number of changes in ICAO's Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) in Annexes 1, 6 and 10. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that an R/T conversation can't be held in another native tongue. There's this mistaken notion that English is the ONLY acceptable ATC language in aviation. It is not.

Annexe 10 says: "The air-ground radiotelephony communications shall be conducted in the language normally used by the station on the ground or in the English language." English is, however, the international language in the sense that when, for example, a Russian plane is flying through French airspace, English will be used as the common language.

All of this can make situational awareness a challenge; if you're bilingual, it works a treat. On the other hand, if Canadian ATC speaks in French to a trainee whose English is marginal, well, the already stressed individual is much more likely to understand and comply. The new English proficiency rules only apply to a Private License holder and above. Students are exempt.

The catch is that Annexe 10 also says: "The English language shall be available, on request from any aircraft station, at all stations on the ground serving designated airports and routes used by international air services". Because it does take two to tango (or communicate clearly) English has been conceded to be the necessary common denominator.

Unfortunately, comms is where the commonality stops. Metrics is another dimension altogether. The reason why a mix of imperial and metric units is used in aviation is to prevent misunderstandings. You'll get altitudes in feet, runway visual range in meters, visibility in kilometers, distances in nautical miles (the exceptions are Russia and China, where all dimensions, except distances, are in meters).

Also, knots and nautical miles are very well suited for navigational purposes, as they have a direct connection to the longitude / latitude system (1 nautical mile equals 1 arc minute latitude or 1 arc minute along the equator).

Together with the recent November 2006 introduction of the MPL (Multi-Crew Licence - tinyurl.com/yg7772), it promises to be an interesting next few years on the air-waves. Some are suggesting that it's no coincidence that the MPL and the language proficiency requirement have hit the aviation street more or less together.

MPL holders will be spending much of their early formative years gaining OJT (on-the-job) training in the RH seat. And anybody manning that seat will be expected to do the lion's share of the radio work.

When the aviation chips are down, polyglot, babel and Esperanto just doesn't work. Any linguistically capable philologist will tell you that. You can read more about ICAO's English Language proficiency push at tinyurl.com/2sm349 (in English).