Native English-speaking air traffic controllers need to speak more clearly and more slowly and to be patient with pilots who do not immediately understand their instructions, according to U.S. air carrier pilots who offered their observations as part of a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) study.1
A report on the study — the sixth in a series by the FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute — recommended research to determine “the optimal speech rate” for delivering air traffic control (ATC) information, to identify how controllers and pilots communicate in “non-standard situations” involving such factors as thunderstorms and air traffic conflicts, and to determine whether there are alternative ways to provide pilots with information that they otherwise would obtain by hearing and understanding ATC conversations with the pilots of nearby aircraft.
“New phraseology may be needed in lieu of the work-around practices of c…
