The AAIB makes interesting reading acknowledging that the pilots were under great stress trying to fly the aircraft in IMC on standby instruments (as the FMS had effectively shut down) with instructions from ATC which could have been more helpful and thus doesn’t entirely match up with the journalist’s report in the original post above.
In fact, questions could be asked of NATS as regards the support and assistance given by the controller. As regards the number of Polish pilots, this doesn’t appear in the AAIB report and is probably the usual journalistic scaremongering (sorry deatiled fact checking).
The key piece in the report about the language being the following:
Radio telephony communications
International standards
The requirements for language proficiency for operational personnel are detailed in ICAO Annex 1. In 2003, ICAO set a deadline of March 2008 for proficiency in Level 4 (operational) and above English for all pilots flying international routes, and ATC
controllers serving international airports and routes. The proficiency scale ranges from Level 1 to Level 6, with guide lines published for pronunciation, fluency, structure, vocabulary, comprehension and interaction.
ICAO will require that Level 4 pilots are reassessed on their abilities every three years, Level 5 pilots every six years, while at Level 6, no further assessment of a pilot’s English language ability is deemed necessary. Thus, the Level 4 (operational) proficiency is considered as a minimum ‘stepping stone’ to higher levels.
Although the main benefit of high international standards of aviation English is that communications between aircraft and controllers are fully understood, particularly when non-standard words and phrases are used, it also has the benefit of increasing the situational awareness of flight crews in relation to other aircraft, both in the air and on the ground.
For those States not able to comply by March 2008, full implementation is due to be completed by March 2011 .
The Polish Civil Aviation Office (CAA) are due to specify a date by which they will comply with the ICAO requirement for English language proficiency.
It is also interesting to look at the safety actions recommended by the AAIB and note that the subject of the English language doesn’t feature at all.
Safety action
In an event such as this, it is clear that ATC may not be able to rely upon pilots for information about the
aircraft’s status, and their ability to fly the aircraft accurately, with degraded instrumentation. The crew of
Lot 282 were not able to communicate adequately the nature and extent of their problem. Following their own
investigation into this incident, the air traffic service provider has made several recommendations, one of
which is that the circumstances of this event should be used for their internal training purposes. The service
provider is also looking at the possibility of liaising with operators to enable controller training instructors to gain
experience by observing Line Orientated Flight Training (LOFT) training sessions.
The operator is considering reminding its pilots of the necessity to use extra caution when manually entering
latitude and longitude co-ordinates when at locations close to the Prime Meridian. Also, the operator is considering
revising its pilot training to highlight the benefits of declaring an emergency in such circumstances.
Because these actions have already been initiated by the organisations concerned, no Safety Recommendations
are made.
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