Disaster narrowly avoided at Paris

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bits44
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Disaster narrowly avoided at Paris

Post by bits44 »

There are no strangers in the world, just friends we have yet to meet.

KLM671
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Post by KLM671 »

Normally they used the "jumbo jet" term for the 747, but now it seems that they use it for every single aircraft, because they say that it is a 300 passenger Airbus....News make mistakes all the time! I find it incredible that airports don't have a system on the ground or something that would tell the pilot that they are going in another aircraft path.

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KLM671 :wave:

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SN_fan
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Post by SN_fan »

Quote : British crews blamed "arrogant" controllers for speaking French when the aviation language is English.

Ok the official language is English, but it's not because they spoke french that they are arrogant. Maybe they just spoke to a pilot who preffered french and continued in French to a BA. It's very common when you speak e.g. French to a peson you continu speaking
French to someone who speaks Dutch even when you normally speaks Dutch.

Wasn't there a crash in tenerife?? with a KLM plane that was still on the runway and another one took off. Due to the fog they were not awary off that. And it was something with that they wanted to talk three at te same time and because of that nobody heard anything.

O well you will all know this better than I, I only saw it on NGC

KLM671
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Post by KLM671 »

Yes, there was a crash in Tenerife, it was KL B747.

Regards
KLM671 :wave:

foxtrot_lima_yankee
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Post by foxtrot_lima_yankee »

I would like to inform you that the accident in Tenerife which happened in the circumstances already mentioned by SN-Fan, wasn t at all caused by a misunderstanding of any kind. It was a clear mistake of the Captain, who made a bad move!!!
He was not cleared to take-off!!!
The captain was hurrying to his destination, as The Netherlands have a law that does not allow crews to operate beyond legal time limits.
KL4805 and Pam-Am 1736 were initially headed to Las-Palmas, but because of a terror-alert they were both diverted to Tenerife and were waiting the reopening of the airport. As the airport of Las-Palmas was reopened to traffic, both KLM and Pan-Am flights were cleared to the runway, KLM for take-off, Pan-Am for taxi. The KLM flight was ordered to taxi all the way to the end of the runway in order to take a 180 degrees left and to take-off using the runway in the opposite direction as it did to taxi. The Pan-Am flight was ordered to do the same, only that it had to pull on the side using the third taxi-way on the left. The KLM captain received information from TOWER about route after take-off and considered it as a take-off clearance while it wasn t one. (Remember, he was in a great hurry). The Captain started taking-off without being fully sure tha the Pan-Am flight had cleared the runway. At this time the Pan-Am B747 was still looking for the exit it had already passed. The Flight Engineer on the KLM B747 asked the Captain weither he was sure Pan-Am had left the runway. To this question, the pilot answered he was, half-jokingly. He would have known that he was wrong,if he had waited 15 more seconds before taking-off. But for 15 seconds, he, his crew and the passengers lost their lives.
About the language gamble, I recommend the pilots to speak English, and not to hang-out playing the cool guys. They should remember that flying is fun, but it is not a game.
But if you want to have real fun and hear some serious bad English accents I recommend you to listen to EBBR Tower ;-)
By the way, in Switzerland, half of the communications are in French, but I should say that even if I m telling you I got my whole youth spent in French schools, you won t be believing me when I say that I hardly understand what they are saying because of their bad accent :-)

KLM671
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Post by KLM671 »

Thank you for the very informative post foxtrot_lima_yankee! If i am not wrong, that was the aviation incident that made most victims in all the history of aviation until before 9/11.

Regards
KLM671 :wave:

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GulfstreamV
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Post by GulfstreamV »

Just out of interest the article is out of The People which is not a broadsheet style paper. They can make stories sound a little elborate...

GulfstreamV

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earthman
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Post by earthman »

The problem with this is that non-French-speaking pilots who are also listening to the communications have no clue what is being said. One should not underestimate this, if you hear that someone else is cleared for landing on a runway you are about to cross, you can stop taxiing or at least inform ATC.

MX727
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Post by MX727 »

This language thing I think is just about safety. If english is the language, then english for everybody.
The problem with this is that non-French-speaking pilots who are also listening to the communications have no clue what is being said.
Exactly! How will they know what's going on with other aircrafts in your same path? Agree 100 % earthman.

Regards,
JAHC

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Knight255
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Post by Knight255 »

This language thing I think is just about safety. If english is the language, then english for everybody.

Quote:
The problem with this is that non-French-speaking pilots who are also listening to the communications have no clue what is being said.


Exactly! How will they know what's going on with other aircrafts in your same path? Agree 100 % earthman.


I'm with you two. With multiple languages being used, it can decrease the other pilots' situational awareness. This is one of the main reasons why two-way radios are still used in aviation, because it contributes information to multiple planes at one time. :wink: The idea of datalinking landing and takeoff clearances worries me. :shakehead:
"What's this button do?? I don't know, push it and find out................."

MX727
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Post by MX727 »

The idea of datalinking landing and takeoff clearances worries me.
Hello Knight! Pardon my ignorance in the subject, but ¿how does this datalinking works and why does it worry you :?:

Regards,
JAHC

Ovostar
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Post by Ovostar »

foxtrot_lima_yankee wrote:I would like to inform you that the accident in Tenerife which happened in the circumstances already mentioned by SN-Fan, wasn t at all caused by a misunderstanding of any kind. It was a clear mistake of the Captain, who made a bad move!!!
He was not cleared to take-off!!!
The captain was hurrying to his destination, as The Netherlands have a law that does not allow crews to operate beyond legal time limits.
KL4805 and Pam-Am 1736 were initially headed to Las-Palmas, but because of a terror-alert they were both diverted to Tenerife and were waiting the reopening of the airport. As the airport of Las-Palmas was reopened to traffic, both KLM and Pan-Am flights were cleared to the runway, KLM for take-off, Pan-Am for taxi. The KLM flight was ordered to taxi all the way to the end of the runway in order to take a 180 degrees left and to take-off using the runway in the opposite direction as it did to taxi. The Pan-Am flight was ordered to do the same, only that it had to pull on the side using the third taxi-way on the left. The KLM captain received information from TOWER about route after take-off and considered it as a take-off clearance while it wasn t one. (Remember, he was in a great hurry). The Captain started taking-off without being fully sure tha the Pan-Am flight had cleared the runway. At this time the Pan-Am B747 was still looking for the exit it had already passed. The Flight Engineer on the KLM B747 asked the Captain weither he was sure Pan-Am had left the runway. To this question, the pilot answered he was, half-jokingly. He would have known that he was wrong,if he had waited 15 more seconds before taking-off. But for 15 seconds, he, his crew and the passengers lost their lives.
About the language gamble, I recommend the pilots to speak English, and not to hang-out playing the cool guys. They should remember that flying is fun, but it is not a game.
But if you want to have real fun and hear some serious bad English accents I recommend you to listen to EBBR Tower ;-)
By the way, in Switzerland, half of the communications are in French, but I should say that even if I m telling you I got my whole youth spent in French schools, you won t be believing me when I say that I hardly understand what they are saying because of their bad accent :-)
thank you for your explanations... but there is still things i don't understand... Why the pilot did not see a plane was in the runway ??? Why was the other plane looking for the exit ? wasn it supposed to take of as well ? Was the collision a small speed ?

KLM671
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Post by KLM671 »

@ ovostar:There was a big fog at the airport!

I agree completely with you earthman, MX727 and Knight255, all conversations should be maid in English, whatever is the country/pilot language, it would save a lot of people lifes!

regards
KLM671 :wave:

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earthman
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Post by earthman »

MX727 wrote:
The idea of datalinking landing and takeoff clearances worries me.
Hello Knight! Pardon my ignorance in the subject, but ¿how does this datalinking works and why does it worry you :?:

Regards,
JAHC
The idea is that instead of communicating with ATC by radio, the pilots will punch in a request to change flight level or speed or heading or whatever into the computer, this is sent to the ATC by datalink, it gets approved there, comes back, pilot presses ok, and the plane does whatever the pilot wanted it to do. Or perhaps it even gets commands sent to it with pilot request. The pilot hears a beep ("you've got mail!"), hits 'OK' and the plane does it's thing. Any other interested party (pilot) will not know that flight XZ5112 will now descend to FL180, as would be the case if they were all listening to the same channel.

I'm sure some journalist will call this 'fly by SMS' or something like that.

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Knight255
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Post by Knight255 »

Any other interested party (pilot) will not know that flight XZ5112 will now descend to FL180, as would be the case if they were all listening to the same channel.
Exactly!! The theory that I have heard at the University where I am being trained is that it would unclog the radio transmissions at busy airports, however, I am completely opposed to the idea because it takes other pilots out of the loop and they cannot get a sense of what is going on at the airport.
"What's this button do?? I don't know, push it and find out................."

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bits44
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Post by bits44 »

The ICAO has prepared a powerpoint presentation of future expected regulations and proficiency levels expected of anyone engaged in ATC operations.

You may be required to download PowerPoint viewer from Microsoft.


http://www.icao.int/icao/en/ro/nacc/mee ... tation.pps
There are no strangers in the world, just friends we have yet to meet.

bravo767
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Post by bravo767 »

Hi everybody,

About the use of languages, just a reminder: ENGLISH is not the only official ICAO language for communication. Even if it is highly desirable and recommended that everyone uses English it is not a fault to use another accepted language.

About the Tenerife crash: the KL flight was on the tower frequency while PanAm was still on the ground frequency. Th pilot of the KL was the the Senior Chief Pilot in the company....
I was present at the moment of the crash, climbing the stairs of a Sabena B747 operating a charter flight for Sobelair. I was a student pilot at the time on that flight as observer. The images are still imprinted in my head and I always double check before entering or crossing a runway.

About the datalink now: CPDLC which is the name of the interface enabling the pilots and ATC to talk via datalink is already widely used for Atlantic crossing and in other Oceanic zones. It not only unclog the ATC but it also gives unmistakable clearances with a written proof. Anyway when using HF (long range communication) you don't maintain continuous listening watch (use of SELCAL which works like a pager) and therefore you don't listen to the clearances given to other aircraft. The system will be progressively in use for other zones, initially for overfly traffic (not landing and take-off) with the use of a voice frequency as back up for very urgent messages.
Datalink is already used at several airports like EBBR since years to deliver the "Clearance"

Happy landings

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earthman
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Post by earthman »

Perhaps they should consider installing a system on each plane which shows other planes in the area along with what they are doing.

As to language, I can't help but notice that KLM pilots communicate things to the cabin crew in English (cabin crew, arm slide bars), while LOT pilots do this in Polish. It's not like KLM has any flight attendants who don't speak Dutch, so what's the deal here?

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