We listened very intently to the Spanish-speaking air traffic controller, coming in “double-broken”: broken radio transmission, broken English. The woman’s voice in Spanish in our earphones that night, high over Bogota, Colombia. It just sounds “high,” since the field elevation at Bogota is about 8400 feet, so they bring you in at like 13,000 feet on an initial leg for the approach.
Turns out 13,000 feet is lower there than 13,000 feet in Fargo, North Dakota, my home plate, thanks to mountainous terrain. I’m told this is because of the Coriolis effect, but I’m not sure about that.
Viva La Diferencia
The controller spoke rapid-fire to other aircraft in Spanish, those pilots responding in Spanish. I could make out some of the numbers—“Cuatro, Cuatro, Ocho”—but that was about it. Then occasionally she’d speak to us in English, sometimes mangling our call sign a bit to keep us on our toes.
The Wright Brothers invented the airplane in December 1903, and now, just a short 121 years later, I found out Colombian ATC invented “Rolling R English,” which sounds like a brand for a Texas cattle ranch, but isn’t.
“Citation 12345, turn rrrrrrright, heading one, two, thrrrrrree.” I didn’t actually time it, but each “R-word” she spoke lasted an estimated 14 seconds.
But enough about the nice Colombian ATC lady, who was quite prrrrrrrofessional—how about the Ecuadorian air traffic controller? He would say things like, “Citation 12345, report asklfvahsossh,” and we’d say, “Citation 12345, please say again,” and he’d say, “Again.” In the background, we heard what sounded like cackling in Spanish, and I think I heard the words “gringo” and “loco.” No, that didn’t happen. He’d repeat his transmission, of course, but it sometimes took multiple repeats to get it right.
Lesson for me: I should speak to ATC in short, easy-to-understand English phrases everywhere I go, but especially where English is a second language, a red-headed stepchild of a language.
We had success when we said things like, “Wilco, report San Cristobal Island, Citation 12345,” instead of, “I’m sorry, sir, did you tell us to report San Cristobal Island, or report our distance from San Cristobal Island, Citation 12345?” If we blathered all that English on the radio, we’d hear back, “Jes.”
If we spoke short phrases, the controller could understand us, and if we were wrong, we’d get corrected. If we were right, we’d hear silence, which was weird, but we learned to live with it. Chopping down our English into short bursts, to sort of save ammo, was the lesson there.
Adapting
We were told, at one airport, to “keep your speed up to 150 knots, there’s an Airbus behind you, three miles.” At night, at a strange airport, flying 150 knots all the way to quite near the runway. What could go wrong?
Of course, the idea was the tower controller wanted us to land and get off the runway expeditiously, but the high-speed turnoffs were not well-lit—but the centerline was really, really well-lit, like Las Vegas. The little taxiway signs were dimly lit and set back from the runway, the lead-in lines dim, so we blew by two of those, finally getting off on a taxiway that we could actually see.
The Airbus had to go around, and the tower scolded us, but hey; who is going to turn toward a taxiway they can’t see, dude? Lesson: A little (or a lot) more pre-study of the airport diagram would have helped. The two turnoffs came sort of fast and furious in the dark, plus the helpful centerline lights were kinda night-vision-killers, once you’re on the ground.
The Cayman Caravan (And Other ‘Foreign ATC’ Tales)
Once upon a time, there was a thing called the Cayman Caravan. It was a group of pilots that got together each year and flew personal airplanes from Key West, Florida (KEYW), to Grand Cayman Island (MWCR)—and back, a few days later. It was a respectable over-water jaunt for piston singles and twins. Many stories came out of those trips. Some of them were true. One remarkable thing about it was that the planned-and-coordinated route took the Caravan over Cuba.
One year, I rode shotgun in a Cessna Turbo 310, down and back. We filed IFR going and coming, and I got to handle the radio, talking to Miami Center, Havana Center and Cayman Approach on the way down. As Matt relates about other non-U.S. ATC facilities, the Havana controllers spoke excellent English but with an obvious accent that only occasionally meant the beginnings of a misunderstanding. The only unnerving thing was, as Matt also relates, they spoke Spanish to other flights on the frequency, making it impossible to see the whole flick. In the end, it probably didn’t matter: Except for the odd U.S. carrier passing through in the flight levels, the Caravan participants were the only ones speaking English. If Havana was vectoring in a MiG on the frequency, we wouldn’t know.
Around the same time, I had the opportunity to fly to London, Ontario, the one in Canada. I did that IFR, both ways. I didn’t spend much time in Canadian airspace—London isn’t that far from Cleveland, Ohio—but the only real difference was substituting French for Spanish. In dealing with both Cuban and Canadian ATC, the key to concise communication was to speak clearly and deliberately, avoiding any jargon we all pick up in U.S. airspace.
All in all, dealing with foreign ATC has been easier for me than with some U.S. facilities. There’s that part-time tower at a nearby airport for one, and another tower nestled in on Florida’s Space Coast. And I can’t leave out Jacksonville Center or Charlotte Approach. But those stories are for another day. — J.B.
Taxi-Back International
Ever fly from a towered airport that has no taxiways? The ground/tower controller at this particular isolated strip gives you a clearance to “taxi to runway one-seven, back taxi to runway three five,” and off you go, hunting for the runway. There were ever-so-faint taxi lines—two of them—leading to the runways, the runway obscured from view by a big row of bushes (isn’t nature great?), so all you can do is follow a dim curving yellow line and then—bam!—you’re on the active runway, with its own dim lines. Just taxi to the end, turn around because you have no choice, tell them you’re ready for takeoff and go.
Back In The US
We get back to the United States and land in what to me is technically another foreign country—Florida. The customs guy came out to check our plane, hand-carrying a big contraption looking like an old Kodak slide projector and a Waring blender got married and had a child. I asked, “Does that machine detect gunpowder or drugs?” He looked at me closely with his Customs-agent eyes, and asked, “Why, do you have gunpowder and drugs?” No, he didn’t say that. He said, “It detects radioactivity. We had a jet come through here in I think 2008 that had radioactive material on it. Turned out to be harmless, but now we use this Kodak-Waring device.”
After some initial hesitation, I engaged the CBP officer with some witty banter. He laughed, then looked at me very seriously and said, “Arms straight out to the sides.” He then ran the machine over my entire body four times, and had his German shepherd give me its full attention.
Lesson: Don’t joke with customs officers. Or their dogs.
Speaking of, in Grand Cayman, one of our guys wanted to pet the drug dog. I said to him in a loud whisper, “No, bad! Bad! Down, boy,” but it was too late. He petted the dog, who only chewed off a small portion of his arm, illustrating to me nature’s “redundancy rule,” humans having two arms and stuff. But then the dog became very suspicious of me, and sniffed me for half an hour. I could tell he didn’t trust me, because he boarded the plane and flew back to Fargo in the jumpseat, watching my every move, taking notes and talking into a little voice recorder.
Home Again
When we landed in Fargo, North Dakota, we parked on what looked like a skating rink, and me without my crampons! The temperature in Bogota, Colombia, was 57 degrees, the temperature in Florida 85 and the temperature in Fargo 19 Fahrenlow.
Lessons learned: bring clothes for the climates you’ll land at, study the approach plates, listen up closely and communicate clearly on the radios. And don’t pet the customs dog.
