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1996-11-22
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Foreign Correspondent
Inside Track On World News
By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>
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UNFRIENDLY THIRD WORLD SKIES
by
Eric Margolis 21 Oct 1996
DETROIT - The midair collision last week near Delhi between a
Saudia 747 and an Air Kazakhstan Illyushin-76 that killed 349
passengers was probably caused by human error. I say this,
because I had a chilling preview of this frightful accident
four years ago.
In July, 1992, I was headed from Ankara, Turkey to remote
Gaziantep, to cover the opening of the vast Ataturk Dam
system in eastern Anatolia. Arriving at Ankara airport, I
was horrified to discover my aircraft was a decrepit,
Soviet-built TU-154 transport of `Moldova Airways.'
I try hard to avoid Third World airlines. Recently, the head
of the Canadian pilot's union wrote a letter to the editor,
calling me a racist and bigot after I dared repeat this statement
in a column. In the week after this deep thinker's letter
appeared, there were three major Third World air crashes: the two
in India, and one in Nigeria, killing nearly 500 people. .
Back to Ankara: since there was no other way of getting to
Gaziantep, I gritted my teeth, boarded, and strapped myself
in. The seatbelt came off in my hand. My seat collapsed
backward. The Tupelov's interior stank of mildew; its metal
parts were encrusted with rust.
As we gained altitude, air screamed through the rotting
rubber gaskets around the doors. I went up to chat with the
crew. As expected, they were all Russians.
Air Moldova - like Air Kazakhstan - had been created from
the breakup of Aeroflot - known in the trade as `Aeroplop'-
the notorious and justly feared airline of the defunct
Soviet Union on which I had often risked my life.
`How long is the flight? I asked the beefy pilot. He stared
at me blankly. So did the co-pilot and flight engineer.
None of them spoke English. We had to talk in my pigeon
Russian. How, I shuddered, are they going to communicate
with air traffic control for landing at Gaziantep?
Fortunately, nowhere Gaziantep was devoid of air traffic, so
we landed without further ado onto the empty field. The
Russian pilot beamed a big, gold-toothed smile at me as I
disembarked. .
Soon after, he somehow flipped the same aircraft over while
trying to land at Ankara, crashed, and burned. Turkish air
traffic controllers said the Russian crew could not
understand them, and committed a series of fatal errors on
final approach. This accident could have happened at
Gaziantep.
Last week's crash very likely was caused by the Russian-
speaking crew of the Kazakh transport failing to understand
the heavily accented, Indian-English of Delhi air
controllers. Indian-English can be difficult to fathom at
the best of times. unless one ears are attuned to this
dialect.
Besides, Delhi airport has long been notorious for iffy
traffic control, outdated radar, and frequent near-
collisions. Worse, Indian authorities foolishly limit
civilian aircraft approaching Delhi from the west to a
single corridor, Airway Green 452, because of nearby
military flight zones. The Saudi and Kazakh aircraft, which
had only 1,000 feet separation, collided at dusk in this
perilous corridor. Probably after the incoming Kazakh
flight selected the wrong altitude after misunderstanding
Delhi control - and, perhaps, due to error in converting
meters into feet.
Linguistic comprehension is a significant problem in air-to-
ground communications. Most international pilots speak
excellent English. But those from the ex-Soviet Union do
not. There is sometimes a comprehension problem between
crews and ground controllers in Asia. A Korean pilot
speaking to a Japanese controller in heavily-accented
English over a poor radio link, for example, may lack total
comprehension - just as Asian businessmen do when using
halting English as a lingua franca.
The answer is for world aviation regulators to implement
much more stringent English proficiency for air crews and
controllers. And to ensure that all airliners carry anti-
collision avoidance systems - so another entirely avoidable
Delhi disaster does not happen.
copyright eric margolis 1996
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For Syndication Information please contact:
Email: emargolis@lglobal.com
FAX: (416) 960-4803
Smail:
Eric Margolis
c/o Editorial Department
The Toronto Sun
333 King St. East
Toronto Ontario Canada
M5A 3X5
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