Air traffic control vs pilots. HL1004 confirm you're
requesting to land Osan Air Base Coming up! Hey, 74 crew! Welcome back! If you don't know me,
my name is Kelsey. I'm a 747 pilot. My channel 74 gear
is all about aviation. The relationship between Air traffic
control and pilots is a really unique one because Air traffic
control is always telling pilots what
they can and cannot do. However, there are some
circumstances where you as a pilot can tell Air traffic control
what you are doing as long as you tell
them in the right way. I want to thank all of you in the 74 crew
who continue to send me these audio clips. Without you I couldn't
make this possible. You are all so amazing. Let's get into it! Spirit 756 El Coco.
Good afternoon, radar contact immediately,
turn right heading 300 Unable for Spirit Wings
756. We're runway heading up to 12000. Can we
get left turn to weather? Oh. Sorry, sir. ATC speaking Spanish. ATC speaking Spanish. Spirit 756, immediately
stop climb at 8000 feet. Will stop climb at
8000 Spirit Wings 756. Can we turn left? Traffic in front of
you opposite bound. Okay, sir. Can we turn left? Okay, Spirit 756. Confirm it's not
possible for you flying heading 320 now. Unable, Spirit Wings 756. Spirit Wings 756, initiating a left
turn for weather at this time and traffic. Okay, maintain 8000 feet
.You got traffic at 12 o'clock to 10 miles opposite bound
at 9000 feet Airbus A320. Spirit Wings 756, maintaining
8000 left turn heading 210 for traffic. Left turn, heading no no
negative. Maintain your present heading, sir.
Negative 210, negative. I'm often asked about
flying internationally, how you, as a pilot, deal with
the different language barriers so when someone
sent me this audio with the controller
speaking in Spanish and English, I thought
this is a great example. In a lot of different countries,
you will have controllers where they're speaking to people
from that airline from that country. They'll speak to them
in their native languages and in other countries,
they will speak to pilots even though it's their native
language, they will all speak in English. For example, in Japan, the controllers
who obviously speak Japanese will speak to the pilots
that are Japanese, they'll speak in English. But in other countries, they
will speak in their native tongue. So it's different from
every different country. Originally when I was
working on this video, I thought I was going to
translate what the controller was saying to these
other pilots in Spanish, I was going to translate that so some of
you had an idea of what was being said. But then I thought, it'd be better for those of you that don't
speak another language to understand and have a different viewpoint
if you're flying in another country of the controller speaking
in another language and you not know
what's being said. So if you didn't understand
what was happening as these Spirit pilots
were actually taking off. there was some
weather in front of them and they wanted to
go around that weather. And without going into
super aviation nerd mode, there are several different
types of clouds that are in the sky and these are the ones
that produce the worst ride and they're called
Cumulonimbus clouds. As pilots when we're flying,
we see those types of clouds. We know those are the types
that we want to stay away from. At daytime, they're a lot easier to
spot. At night time our radar tells us and in the daytime,
we use our radar and what we can see outside
to stay away from those. So if you're flying
through really bumpy air, there's a likelihood that you
were flying in that type of a cloud. And the pilots are typically
going away from the center of that which is going to
have the roughest ride and the most vertical winds. On a side note, I know a lot of
passengers don't like turbulence. Some pilots are afraid of them
which, I think, is a little bit weird but most pilots don't
want to be in turbulence because who wants
to be in a bumpy ride. The only group of people that I've ever
heard who consistently have said to me: "I really like turbulence"
are flight attendants. Some flight
attendants don't like it. There are people who
are afraid of turbulence but some flight attendants, more than
any other group that I've ever met go "Oh, I love turbulence!" I don't know, it's kind of a
weird thing for me to love. Anyway, so as a pilot
we're looking at the radar, we'll see "Hey, that type of cloud
is something we don't want to go in". so either the radar is telling us or
visually we're outside and we can see "hey, that's not a cloud
that we want to go through" or we're using both which is
typically what most pilots do. They'll back up what they
see outside with their radar and that's what's
happening here. These pilots are seeing
something in front of them that they know they
don't want to get into. Unable for Spirit Wings
756. We are Runway heading up to 12000, can we get
left turn due to weather? Internationally, it's most common
for pilots to say something like We need to go left heading
210 for Charlie Bravos. Charlie Bravos is the C
and the B put together. And it's that type of cloud
that I've been talking about that pilots typically
want to avoid. However, this pilot what he's saying
is we want to go left for weather. And what's being lost in
translation is he's saying, weather and the controller isn't
understanding exactly what he's saying because they're used to hearing in most cases Charlie Bravo. Had this pilot said we want
to go left for Charlie Bravos, they would probably put together
what exactly it is they're dealing with. Listen what he says here. Unable for Spirit Wings
756. We are Runway heading up to 12000, can we get
left turn due to weather? At most airports in the world,
the controllers have radar. Now, the radar in different
parts of the world is different. Some areas have
really good radar and the controllers really know
how to move you through clouds. A place that I recently flew into a few
months ago, we were flying into Miami and there was thunderstorms
everywhere. I mean everywhere. Now, they have a satellite
view real time that's moving that is sometimes better than
what we have on the plane. So we have to have some trust in
the controllers of what they're doing and we had our radar out
and it was scanning everything and they were
giving us headings. And basically picking us through
to get lined up to come in and land. So shout out to the
controllers in Miami for getting us through
some terrible storms and we just trust them based and
backed up what they were saying. It's kind of a trust
but verify situation. They're saying fly this heading and it looked like okay,
that should be okay. And we're going to trust that
when we get on the back side of this that it's not going to be
jammed up in a corner so we have to trust them and we're also verifying with our
radar everything that was going on. So they picked us through
a huge line of thunderstorms to get us down onto
the ground in Miami. Really well done
from those guys. Now in this case the
controller, I guess, is not seeing this type of
weather development, right? Because he keeps
asking them to turn north and they're asking to turn
south away from the weather. And then, this next transmission I
believe was the captain stepping in. Listen to this. Spirit Wings 756 initiating a left
turn for weather at this time and traffic. So the pilots are
allowed to deviate left or right when they're
dealing with weather. In that case they can say: "Hey! We have weather and we
need to go left or we need to go right" and that's typically something
in most places in the world, the controllers
will allow you to do. They'll ask you how
far you want to go. Whether it be a
heading or miles offset. So you might ask for 30
miles off to the left hand side or 30 miles off to
the right hand side based off of what your radar is
showing you, what you can see. You'll pick something like that
and then you'll ask and request that type of a heading
or that type of an offset. That's typically
something that's accepted. However, this pilot
is mentioning traffic. The problem with traffic is the controllers are controlling
all the traffic that's around you. The only time that you
can ask or change anything when it comes to traffic
and do it without permission, is when you get something
called a Resolution Advisory. We call it a RA. What's happening is the
planes are talking to each other. So if there's about to
be any type of a collision, these two planes talk to each
other and they will say, for example, to my plane will verbally
tell me "Descend" and their plane will
verbally tell them "Climb" and now we keep the separation. Something like that is a
system that's set up in place and that will override
anything that controller is doing. So if the controllers try to
put you in a head on collision which they obviously
wouldn't but if they tried, you would get instructed by
your plane to do something else. Both pilots would comply with that and
there wouldn't be any type of a collision. In that case, you would
transmit the controller: "Hey, we're descending and
we're complying with a RA" That controller is going
to be in some trouble, you're going to be fine. Then once your RA is complete, your resolution advisory is complete
and you're away from that plane, you will go back to
your assigned altitude and then you will continue
your flight from there. That's the only
time with traffic that you're allowed to not follow
the instructions of the controller. So in this case, when he's saying weather
and traffic, it's creating a confusion. Now, something that happens,
it sounds like the first officer is asking a request
to go to the left. But they're not understanding
exactly what they're asking for. There's a certain point where as
a plane is flying closer and closer to this bad weather that you have to
just make this decision and tell them: "Hey! We're turning" Because you don't want to be
flying through a horrible storm just because the controller is not
understanding what you're saying. Because then, you're putting your
plane, your passengers, yourself, everybody at risk
by doing that, right? So you're going to say: "Hey,
we're turning left to this heading" which is exactly what happens. Now, it sounds like the
captain jumped on the radio and said: "Hey, we're making
this turn to this direction" which is acceptable. That's not
anything that's out of the norm but then he starts referencing
the traffic which isn't really helping the controller understand
what's going on, right? So, the fact that the
captain is jumping in there's two possible
situations here. One, the captain
can tell the first officer: "Tell them, we're
turning to a heading 210" or the captain can just say: "Hey,
we're turning to a heading 210". It can go either way, it doesn't really
have to be one way or the other, right? But he's initiating that turn because
now it's becoming a safety of flight issue if they were to fly right
into the middle of that storm. So listen again to
what he says here. Spirit Wings 756 initiating a left
turn for weather at this time and traffic. Something to keep in
mind for those of you that if you ever decide to
start flying internationally is there are trigger or keywords that you
use and you will learn as you start flying that will let the controllers know
what it is that you're dealing with or wanting to have changed. By saying Charlie Bravo, the
controller anywhere in the world even if they barely
speak any English which sadly is the
case in some countries, they will understand Charlie
Bravo means bad weather. And then they'll be
listening to what you say. So you say Charlie
Bravo request heading 210 or Charlie Bravo
offset 30 miles. They may not know what offset
or some of those words might mean but they know left 30
miles Charlie Bravo. They're kind of getting those
keywords that you're saying and going: "Okay, he wants to offset 30 miles
to the left because of bad storms" They can understand that
so using those keywords that they understand
is really important. We deal with that with ground
controllers and different places that we're going in the world where
English isn't their first language. They're listening
for key trigger words so if you start using slang words which is
why I emphasize that so much in the U.S. for regional pilots and
I was guilty of it as well, you start using all those
slang words that we use and the box and fish finder
and all these different things, then if you ever do
start flying international and you start
saying those things not only are you going to make
your whole crew look stupid but then the controllers aren't
going to know what you're saying. So it's important to get
those good habits right now and so using weather in the U.S. is
pretty common like left for weather. The controllers, it's your first
language they know what you're saying. Using Charlie
Bravo inside the U.S. even I don't
think that I do that and most guys that I'm flying
with domestically we don't. But once we start going
international, that's what we say. So now listen up to what happens
when the controller realizes what it is that
they're dealing with. Listen. Negative sir, we
need a heading due to weather. We cannot
fly into the weather cell. Fly heading 210,
immediately Spirit Wings 756. Costa Rican 4021, have
you got any kind of bad weather there, about
five miles ahead of you? Now, it's obvious to
me that the controller wasn't seeing this
on his weather radar because in Spanish, he's
asking these other pilots Are you seeing any type
of weather ahead of you? So, he is not seeing that. Once he realizes though that
the pilots needed that request and they needed to
turn left for weather, then he says: "Okay, you're
cleared to go left to that heading". So once he understood what
was being requested of him, he was happy to comply
and help the pilots get around. Once the pilots get around,
he'll say something like: "When able direct to
this fix and on course". He'll say something like that so that way they know
they obviously aren't just going to go off
for never never land. Once, they get around the weather,
they'll go to a fix and the past will say: "Hey, we'll direct it this place
and we're back on course". They'll transmit that. The controller knows "Okay,
they're going back on course". So that's all normal
and everything like that. The thing to
understand though is the controller didn't understand
what was going on, partly it was the fault of the pilots
by saying traffic which was confusing. The controller would be confusing me
too and then they're saying "Weather" and the controller's not
hearing Charlie Bravo. Now, obviously this controller
speaks pretty good Spanish or I mean pretty good English. He speak pretty good
English but he might be hearing weather and not
quite putting it together. Had these pilots
said Charlie Bravos? I think he would have put
together what was going on. But because he's
saying weather and traffic, the controller isn't quite
understanding exactly what's going on, especially since it's not
showing up on his radar. So he's not thinking "weather"
because it's not showing up because he's asking these
other pilots "Do you see it?" and so that's what
created the confusion here. HL1004 Calling Osan approach say again. HL1004 HL1004 IDENT IDENT HL1004 HL1004 radar contact 5
miles Northwest of VASLI [unintelligible] altimeter
29.99, say your request. HL1004 29.99 request
landing at Osan Air Field for fuel HL1004 confirm you're
requesting to land Osan Air Base. Yes, sir. HL1004 Roger HL1004, do you
have a PPR number? Negative, sir. We
just land Osan for fuel. Alright, standby. Standing by, HL1004 HL1004, if you do not have a PPR
number, you cannot land at Osan Air Base. For those of you who plan to become
pilots at some point in the future or are pilots now, I'm going to give you my personal
take on this. It is just my personal take. There is nothing written saying
that this is the way to do it. But it's that. When you are going
to check in and make a request, just check in and make
that request at the same time. He could have said
one statement and it would have resolved
this 50 seconds of audio which I had to trim down, right? So had he made his request
initially when he called, then the controller, if they understood
the request, would have said: Okay, this A, B or C or whatever
the response would have been. But I often hear pilots say: "Boeing 123 with request". The
controller has to say "Go ahead". And then you have to
say your request, right? So you're going to say this request
anyways because people say, Why are you going to say your request when
they may not be ready for your request? okay, they may
not be ready for it but there's a possibility the controller
is just sitting there eating a sandwich or I don't know whatever
they're doing up there. They're always on land lines
or whatever is happening. So there's a possibility
the controller's just sitting right there
with nothing to do and when you say: "Boeing
123, request A, B and C" If they're listening to what
you're saying and understand it then they'll go: "Okay, yeah
sure. You can have A, B and C". And if they didn't
understand it, well then you're going to say
A, B and C anyways. So either way, you might
as well make one transition then they can give you the answer
right there if they understood you or they're going to
ask you a second time to explain what it is
that you're asking for and then you can say it again. So you're going to say
it two times either way but if my scenario, there's a
possibility that you say it just one time. So when the pilot
checked on like this: HL1004 Now, had that pilot made the
transmission to Osan Air Base which I've flown
into all the time. It's in the south part
of Korea obviously. It's near to
Incheon, near Seoul. It's near the capital of everything
that's going on but it's a military base. You need permission to go
to that military base, right? That's why he's asking
for this PPR number. Now, had that pilot made the
transmission and said something like: "Mayday, mayday, mayday. Osan Air
base, Hotel Kilo 1004 Emergency fuel, request landing at Osan". Had the pilot made
that transmission initially, that controller would have
known: "Okay, this is a mayday" "He's not requesting, he's
not planning to come here" He's a mayday aircraft which
means it's an emergency. So a lot of the rules
are out the window. He's emergency fuel which
means that he has very little fuel as far as to get to
where he was going to go and so now it's a
totally different thing. But the way that the guy is making these
calls to the controller he's saying like: "Hey, I just want to land
there and get some gas". It's kind of what it
initially sounds like. It'd be like: "Oh, I'm just flying around" and like: "Oh, what?
Oh yeah. I'd like to run over here and go get some
gas from your Air Base" What? No. You can't. Just no.
This is not what this place is for. However: "Hey, I have
an emergency situation" All the rules change. So had the controller
heard what I just said with the "mayday,
mayday, mayday" call, it would have changed
and saved a lot of time. Now, in an emergency, that
time in this case not as vital but in a lot of cases it's
very vital that you get that call so they can immediately start
giving you the help that you need. Now, a little side story about
Osan is that it's a huge Air Base. And they are very close to Incheon
which I've flown to a bunch of times. I made a bunch of videos there
in the hotels there in Incheon. But those two
places are very close. I would say it's about a
13-minute flight something like that. One time we had landed in Osan, offloaded
all of our cargo for the military then we were flying over to
Incheon to be done for the day. That flight was about 13
minutes like I said, be my guest, and the captain had me working the radios
and doing everything and hand flew it. Now, normally I get irritated because
it it adds a bunch of my workload because now I'm
running the radios, running all the checklists and
having to change all the different dials because they are hand flying
so now it's my responsibility. But I wanted to be able
to say in like 30 years like to young pilots like:
"Oh! When I was a kid, I've seen captains on the
747 hand fly the whole flight". Now, the reality is it was 13 minutes
but I still wanted to be able to say that and now that I can. Now, back to the story with the
pilot and needing a PPR number, that applies to
any civilian aircraft. so obviously in this
case, I'm flying a civilian aircraft, I'm flying
onto a military base. My airline coordinates
and gets all the paperwork and everything organized
before we get there and we need to have that
organized before we land. Even though everybody on my
plane or maybe I have all troops, maybe that's the case or maybe I have a
bunch of military equipment on my plane, even with all that stuff and meaning
that it's all military equipment on board without having all the proper paperwork
you're not getting onto that Base, right? Except in this scenario
we're declaring an emergency. Then, the rules change. So this controller isn't being tough or
rigid or difficult or anything like that, he's just not understanding and
grasping the reality of the situation because the pilot is failing
to communicate clearly what exactly is going on. So listen to this next part. How about Pyeongtaek field? HL1004, if you do not have a PPR
number, you cannot land at Osan Air Base. How about Pyeongtaek
field HL1004. You also cannot land
at Pyeongtaek either. Oh, I'm fuel shortage HL1004. HL1004, do you
require any assistance? I just need fuel. I'd like to land
Osan or Pyeongtaek HL1004. HL1004, say fuel
remaining in minutes. About 20 minutes. About 20 minutes, HL1004. HL1004, roger. Are
you emergency fuel? Roger, HL1004. Is that an affirmative, sir. Are you
yes, are you emergency fuel or no? Yeah, emergency fuel, HL1004. HL1004, roger. Understand
emergency fuel. When able say number of souls on board and you can
expect to land at Pyeongtaek. Yeah, two souls on board,
land Pyeongtaek HL1004. The controller is basically having to coax
out the pilot here what the situation is. And once the pilot starts saying things,
he says like: "Are you emergency fuel?" Like he's trying to get the pilot
to tell him exactly what's going on. He's starting to realize like:
"Oh, okay. This is a problem" because the pilot only has
20 minutes of fuel on board, that would make me feel
extremely, extremely uncomfortable. You should never have
that little fuel on your aircraft. Especially on a
smaller plane like this. I mean, on any plane really but when you're in this situation here
and you have 20 minutes of fuel, that is a very,
very bad situation. And so the controller now
realizing what the situation is, has changed the tone of
exactly what's going on. Asking for the minutes of fuel, asking how many souls. So he's getting everything ready and then in the background, the
controllers are probably working on getting everything
coordinated for them to go to
another Air Base. It's an army Air Base that's
right near to this Air Base. We've got a lot of bases
down in South Korea. So then, listen what
happens in this next part. HL1004 will you be able
to make Osan Air Base or do you want to go
to Pyeongtaek instead? Prefer Pyeongtaek airport HL1004 HL1004, roger. HL1004 turn right
heading 320 vectors for Pyeongtaek and when
able, say your type of aircraft. 320 vectors for Pyeongtaek
and a Cessna 206. Copy Cessna 203. HL1004, confirm number
of souls on board is one? Two, HL1004. Roger, two souls on board. Affirm HL1004. HL1004 Pyeongtaek is 12 o'clock for 9
miles when able report the field in sight. Still negative contact, HL1004. Roger. HL1004, Pyeongtaek is
now 12 o'clock for 6 miles. Negative contact, HL1004. HL1004, roger. HL1004, now Desidero
is 1 o'clock for 4 miles. Field in sight, HL1004. HL1004, roger. Contact
Desidero Tower on 122.5 122.5 HL1004, thank you. I've never been to that Air Base and I
don't know the layout of that Air Base but something that I
like that this pilot is doing is when that they're telling
him where the airport is he's not reporting the
field in sight until he sees it. Something that happens in a
controversial video that I did is that these pilots were flying and they were
asked: "You have the field in sight?" Now something to know is that when
you say "Yes, I have the field in sight" the controller is then putting
the responsibility on you to maintain that field in sight that you're going to be able
to visually fly to and land there. So when the controllers
say something like that you have to understand the
implications that are involved. In an earlier video I did a
while back, the pilot said: "Yeah, I had the field in sight" And the controller then tried to
turn the responsibility over to the pilot and pilot said: "Well, I'm
not ready. There's clouds and there's other
things in the way". So this pilot is in a
bad, a very bad situation. They're very low on fuel and instead of saying "Yes,
we have the field in sight" because they're nervous and they don't
want to create a bad problem or anything, they're waiting until
they are sure that that field is where they're
supposed to be going. So the controller is vectoring
them or getting them heading right towards the airport there. So that way, they
can safely land. And these pilots are doing the
right thing by saying they don't see it. Sometimes when you get uncomfortable, you
just want to kind of like make it go away but these pilots are doing
the right thing by saying "Hey, no. We don't
have the field in sight" And you hear the controller giving
him a countdown of how far away he is until they do see it and they're only a couple miles away
and they see now where the airfield is so they can get on the ground. So the pilot did the right
thing there by waiting until he was sure that
that's where he wanted to go. I'm sure some of you were wondering what
happened to this pilot once they landed. And I didn't even bother
look because it's not important. The reality is that if you were in a jam, if you were
jammed up and things are going sideways then the most important thing
for you to do is get on the ground. Now, these pilots are probably going
to have to fill out a lot of paperwork and they may be in some trouble but that's better
than being dead. It's also better from trying to get to
where you want to go to hide your mess up. They obviously miscalculated
their fuel because of wind or weight or who knows what
and it doesn't really matter. The reality is that they're going
to land, they're going to be okay and they're going to have to do
some paperwork and things like that but they're going to be okay and at the end of the day,
that's the most important thing. There have been cases where
pilots are trying to hide their mess up and by hiding their
mess up they end up killing themselves and
a lot of other people. So it's important that
you get yourself into a jam. You've really messed up and I've
said it before and I'll say it again, the controllers when
you've jammed yourself up and you've
miscalculated everything, when they know that
you've messed up, they're not going to berate you or question you
or doing that stuff. They just want to get
you on the ground safely. Which as soon as that controller
realized what was going on, you heard the voice and
the mannerisms change. Originally, he's like "No,
you can't come and land here. That's not what we're all about" And then when he realized
what was going on he's like "Where do you want to land?" So that change in tone was
because he understood now these pilots were
in a bad situation. So don't ever be scared. If you're flying around
and you lose an engine and you're right
over a military base, now granted, if you have
a place right next to it that you can go land
then go land there. But you're right
over a military base, don't be afraid to
tell the controller like "I can't make that but I can
make this military base right here". The controller will coordinate and get
that done because at the end of the day, it's better to land on that military
base and be in a lot of trouble and fill out a bunch of
paperwork or whatever than try to land somewhere
that you're not going to make it or you could possibly crash, hurt yourself or
everybody on the plane. At the end of the day, those
controllers are going to help you out but you have to let them know
what is going on on your aircraft. That's the most important thing. Now, the important thing
here in this video though is that we do the fun part that
we do at the end of every video. Listen to this one. Portland 281ND Arrow 281ND Portland go ahead. 281ND would like to request a destination
change going back to Portland, please. Arrow 281ND what's the
reasoning for the destination change. We're not huge on Thai food and we
realized the restaurant at Agusta is Thai food so we're just going to drive
into the city and get some food there. Alright. Perfect, thanks. Now, the controller
could have said "Hey, we're too busy to
handle you for whatever reason". "We got planes coming
in for the next 30 minutes but if they have a spot,
they accommodated". The pilots asked "Hey, we have
this situation and can we get in there?" "Yeah, sure. Come on through" and then they always
ask, I'm not really sure if they have to fill out
a form of something, but they asked "Why are you going in
there? What was the reason for that?" I don't know what they do on the back side
there but they'll typically ask you that. If you're ever changing, what
it is that you're doing, right? So my real question here is, One, how did they figure out
while they were in route to this place that it had only Thai food. I understand maybe
not wanting Thai food. I personally like Thai food but if you're on your way there, how
are they realizing while they're in flight that that is all that is at
that airport? I don't know. That's the part about that
video that totally confused me so if you know,
please let me know. Now, if you want to see the controversial
video that I was talking about where the pilot saying
they have the airport and then they don't have the
airport, check out this video here. And if you want to
see something a little bit more fun, check
out this video up here. I look forward to
hearing from you. Until then, Keep the blue side up.
