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Aviation English and Safety
Robert Fowler
Aerospace Department, Middle Tennessee State University
AERO 1020: Theory of Flight
Professor Robert Fowler
January 25, 2021
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Aviation English and Safety
According to Baugh and Stolzer (2018), communications problems in aviation can occur
between pilots or between pilots and air traffic controllers. These problems can occur between
native English speakers as well as any combination of native and non-native English speakers
(Baugh & Stolzer, 2018). Findings presented at a National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) workshop in 1979 concluded that a major cause of air carrier accidents
was due to human error. The specific causes of these accidents involved failures in leadership,
decision making and communication (McKeel, 2012).
Aviation Safety Reporting System
There is existing data concerning aviation incidents in the NASA Aviation Safety
Reporting System (ASRS) which is a voluntary safety reporting system for pilots, controllers and
other aviation personnel and crew members. The purpose of the ASRS is to collect, analyze and
respond to these voluntary incident reports to reduce the probability that these incidents will
occur again in the future (NASA, n.d.). A preliminary search of ASRS incident reports between
January 2009 and January 2019 revealed 15,725 reports related to a breakdown in
communication. If the communication breakdown is related to a lack of proficiency in aviation
English, specific words such as English, foreign, language and accent should appear in the
narrative and synopsis of these reports. Narrowing the search to reports that contain these words
reduced the number to 603 reports. A preliminary review of these reports revealed that many
were related to problems with aviation English.
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This study will seek to answer the following question: How does a lack of proficiency in
aviation English lead to communication failures in aviation incidents and accidents? An analysis
of existing data from the ASRS will be performed to determine the answer to this question.
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References
Baugh, B. S., & Stolzer, A. J. (2018). Language-Related Communications Challenges in General
Aviation Operations and Pilot Training. International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics,
and Aerospace, 5(4). https://commons.erau.edu/ijaaa/vol5/iss4/8/
McKeel, G. J. (2012). Crew resource management. Marine Corps Gazette, 96(5), 44-46.
https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1013985238?pq-
origsite=summon
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Aviation Safety Reporting System (n.d.).
Program Briefing. https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/overview/summary.html