George Bernard Shaw said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language. The same often applies to U.S. pilots trying to communicate with air traffic control (ATC) on international flights, even though their mutual language is ostensibly English — further standardized by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) phraseology. When asked about their ATC communication experiences flying in non-native English-speaking countries, 52 percent of a study group of U.S. pilots reported the experiences as negative, compared with 17 percent who described them as positive or very positive.
The data are contained in the third of a series of reports by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Civil Aerospace Medical Institute.1 In responses to a questionnaire and interviews, 48 U.S. pilots described their radio communications, mainly with air traffic controllers, during international flights.
The FAA estimat…
