Are we Missing What Aviation is Saying, and How?
by Charlie Penner
If words have meaning, what could be the impact of one word?
On March 27, 1977, in Tenerife, Spain, the impact of just one word meant tragedy and the largest loss of airline passenger lives ever. The one word was ‘takeoff.’ It was used because air traffic control was explaining to the captain of a KLM jumbo jet what to do after takeoff clearance was given. That captain was in the juggling act of major airport delays and had just requested clearance for takeoff, that one word was all that was needed.
This wasn’t an ordinary day for the Tenerife airport (Los Rodeos). A bomb had been set off at a nearby airport (Las Palmas) which forced all nearby aircraft to detour to Los Rodeos, now known as Tenerife Norte. They had never been busier and didn’t have the staff to handle the volume. To further complicate the situation, a thick fog closed in on the airport reducing visibility to almost zero and everyone was now relying solely on verbal communication.
The captain of the KLM jumbo had to hurry, he was almost at the end of his duty day, if they were not airborne soon, it would mean he and the other 247 people on board would not go anywhere for a very long time. He heard the word ‘takeoff’ from airport control and took it as permission to do so.
Permission wasn’t being granted, however, since Pan Am also had a jumbo jet slowly taxiing on the same runway directly ahead of the KLM plane, invisible in the fog. The Pan Am tried to exit the runway and the KLM pilot throttled up but it was all too late; both planes collided, killing all crew and passengers on the KLM flight, along with 9 crew and 326 passengers on the Pan Am flight.
With so much at stake and the domino effect of each element at play in this disaster, why was so much focus placed on just one word?
Flying is hectic; anyone who has been in an airport knows this. That day in Tenerife, there were two Dutch pilots, two American pilots and one Spanish air traffic controller; visibility was low, and everyone was being pulled in all directions. This is a very normal day at most international airports around the world, yet flying is still, by and far, the safest way to travel. Odds are you will be hit by lightning before ever being involved in an airplane emergency. Hit by lightning five times, by the way.
Odds that impressive are not accidental. In 1994, Kim Cardosi analyzed 8,444 messages between air traffic control and pilots; it was more than 49 hours of talking. The end result was less than one percent of messages contained errors. That’s how 37 million flights end every day without incident, every instruction must be repeated, the alphabet has been re-written to 26 words least likely to be confused with each other, and it’s not just radio communication to which these rules apply. I’ve sat in the jump seat countless times (the really uncomfortable seat behind the pilots) and it becomes almost comical, a pilot will not use the washroom without the use of standardized language. “I’ve got to take a leak,” is always followed by, “You’ve got control,” and the co-pilot always repeats, “I’ve got control.”
Step back into the cabin and listen to your flight attendants talk amongst each other. It feels like their narrating life on the plane, “I’m going to the forward galley,” “This is for the lady in 12D,” or “The man in 4A is a jerk!” If knowledge is power, then communication is empowerment.
When you watch YouTube videos of emergency evacuations, the flight attendants are always in the same spot, giving the same simple and clear instructions. This isn’t luck; it’s a result of clear communication repeated every day, never changed. I could spend all day talking about the extreme examples of clear communication I witness every day, or the exam you need to take to be allowed to use an airplane radio, or the hundreds of pages of regulations about communication. That’s missing the point; the point is, less than one percent error, the point is millions of communications spoken by a thousand accents in order to hurdle 560 tonnes through the air at 900 kilometres an hour and it’s all done safer than you crossing the street.
It’s probably not realistic for anyone to incorporate such standardized communication in the workplace – unless you’re driving Formula 1 cars. So, what’s the lesson? For me, it’s in the why.
Aviation has regimented its communication around the world in the best attempt to eliminate misunderstanding. Every statement is to be exactly specific; it leaves no room for understatement or exaggeration, it cannot be interpreted differently. Communication at this level would be a politician’s dream! I’m sure everyone has their own examples of when clearer communication could have made life easier. As a kid, my mother once instructed me to put the chicken in the oven for an hour, I also had to turn it over after 30 minutes and I executed it perfectly! We still ate late that night because she failed to instruct me to turn the oven on. See Mom, this article could have gotten me to bed on time that night.
It’s an unfortunate catch-22; it takes damaged and lost lives to make aviation, and all industries, safer. Although the pilots of the KLM jumbo jet were ultimately held responsible for the Tenerife tragedy (for reasons not stated) one of the most prominent changes was that the word “takeoff” is never to be said by an air traffic controller, unless they are explicitly granting permission to take off. The importance of communication has never been lost on the aviation world; it has been constantly under improvement, far longer than I have lived.
So, the only question left is why haven’t I figured it out? Do I trace every faux-pas back to one word I could have communicated clearer? Even if the understanding of that word choice wasn’t something faulted to me? Surely, I need to be clearer… and don’t call me Shirley!
Charlie Penner most recently completed his MBA, specializing in marketing. He currently creates and trains for the standards and procedures department at Canadian North Airlines. Photography and media design are his go-to side hustles, in his spare time he enjoys learning to be his own stockbroker. And, Charlie likes his chicken spicy! View him on Linkedin here!
Photo credit: Pixabay.com