how do pilots deal with loss of RADIOS?!

hi everybody whether I come to mentor and gentle video podcast as always I hope you're doing absolutely fantastic today on the video guys what if an aircraft loses all communication with air traffic control and it cannot get the radios working what could potentially cause that and how could a flashlight help this video is brought to you in cooperation with skill share now Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of high-quality video courses in anything that you can imagine now I know that you are sitting watching this video because you're a curious person you like to learn things and that's where Skillshare really excel for example I'm a professional pilot but I wasn't a professional youtuber so I needed to learn that my course that I have been using to become better to give better stuff from me to you is a course called authentic youtubing with Sorel Amal rates great to kind of highlight what you should be focusing on and what you shouldn't be focusing on but I also 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closed loop communication then we're going to talk about what different kind of radio equipment that we have and also what could potentially cause a loss of communication and what the pilots do if that happens so make sure that you stay tuned to the end so let's look at how communication works done but first of all you have to realize that air traffic control and pilots we communicate all the time and it's extremely important that we do so because it's becoming more and more air traffic as we speak there's general aviation there is training aviation there is commercial aviation with both passenger transport and cargo transport and all of these have to work together in perfect harmony in order to maintain separation in between the aircraft so there's no risk of collision but also to maximize the use of the airport and the apron so it's extremely important that this communication works the way that we communicate with each other is using a system called closed-loop this means that both the sender and the receiver gets the same message and that both of them understand that the same message has been received so it starts with a sender sending a message to the receiver so air traffic control will call the callsign men 2 3 6 0 climb flight level 350 row but send it off to the aircraft now I read that back when 2 3 6 0 climb a tree fly to the 3 5 0 and in a perfect closed-loop scenario the sender the original sender then says sends back just their own callsign in order to verify that you know both of us understood that the communication was correct so it's extremely important that both the sender and the receiver verifies the message so that there's no confusion because if you think about it when you talk to your wife for example or your your husband and you tell them something and they go and do something come back with something different than you asked for them that is a communication failure that is happened because he or she did not read back what you said so Karl go and get me some iced tea and he comes back with a bumblebee and you said I didn't tell you to come back with a bumblebee I told you to come back with iced tea oh I didn't understand that if he would have read back then okay I'm gonna go and get you a bumblebee you said no I want an iced tea and this would never happen this is how the closed loop communication actually works right and that's how we communicate all the time now what kind of communication equipment do we have on the aircraft so on the Boeing 737 we have three different very high frequency transmitters and receivers three calm radios we have come one which is on the captain's side that's where we do our primary communication that's talking to our traffic control we have come to which is on the first officer side I'm the Center pedestal that's what we do secondary communication so for example taking whether eighties involvement talking to engineering if we need to or talk into our ops controllers if we have and say we have wheelchair passenger so more than we need to prepare for that and then we have comm three because on the backside of the Center pedestal a country normally is used for data linking communication data link communication is something that we just sorted with my airline and it is communication for air traffic control to us through the FM C so we get a ding will go down will look at the ATC button on the FMC and see that there is a frequency change for example so this has been made as a system to to reduce the amount of voice calls because it's getting quite crowded on the frequencies now okay but all of these three radios could be used separately for the same thing so if we had a failure of comm one with lemon-juice come to to talk with our traffic control both of those two that fails then we can use country to talk to our traffic control so there's a it's a three-way backup it's a very very secure system on top of that if we flying an aircraft that is used for flying Atlantic routes far away from land we might also have an H F for high frequency transmitter and that is used because HF since the wavelength is longer will reach further the HF is a fairly limited range HF has a much wider range and that's why it's used on Atlantic routes so that's the kind of communication equipment that we have onboard what could cause a complete loss of communication done well we're going to divide this into two things so we're going to divide it into the most lighter thing the thing that happens almost every day at some part of Europe and that's what we call prolonged loss of communication now I've done a complete video about that you can check it out but we're gonna go through it again a little bit in order for you to understand it so as an aircraft is flying along a route the aircraft will be talking to several different air traffic control units the reason for this is that like a measurement before the VHF radios only have limited range so as we're flying along let's say we're flying from the UK down to Greece then we will talk to one controller and they would hand us over to the next controller which will hand us over to the third controller continuously so that we always have contact with someone but if we would be flying along and let's say that there would be a distraction because Plock generally tends to be because of the human factor and most of the cases because of the pilot so let's say that we the pilots are discussing something maybe we have a technical failure that we're focusing on and we're discussing or we just have a really interesting discussion about something and we would fly along air traffic control tries to reach us we we don't listen we we didn't hear it then eventually we will fly out of range of that controller they would try to call us but we won't hear anything anymore and the radio will become eerily quiet okay now if that happens we have many many standard operating procedures SOPs in order to keep from happening so for example on our route we have waypoints that are associated with specific EFI or boundaries those boundaries is when we should be changing over to the next controller we take those boundaries and we put them in our navigation display as a fix so we can see that there's point there we'll post that if we haven't heard anything we contact after after control we also listen to one-to-one this mod 5 on the secondary radio on come to + 1 - 1 5 is the international emergency frequency that means that everyone all of the aircraft around and also the air traffic control units are also listening out on that and if one unit cannot reach off they can relay to a second unit that can call us or we can just call that frequency and we'll get into contact with someone who can then give us the correct frequency right we are also doing what we call radio checks if we haven't heard anything from a traffic control in 25 minutes or if we haven't heard our own cold sign in 25 minutes well then we have to call them and do a radio check and the way we do that is I call my callsign and the frequency I'm on so men - 3 6 0 on 1 - 6 this mod 5 radio check they will then come back and either switches over because they've forgotten to do that or we will get a new frequency right now if we've completely lost all of that we also have a on route map that we can take up and on those on route maps there are frequencies for the area where we are so we can see where we are we can check what frequency should be on we can get that in and call them up so there's several ways to keep that from happening but say that we've missed all of this we've been in a really really interesting discussion we've been focusing on something else maybe we've turned down the volume 1 2 1 5 so we haven't heard how they're trying to call us well then air traffic control have to assume that something nefarious is going on they don't know if the reason for us not responding is because we have a failure of our radios or because we have been distracted or because someone is interfering with us and the only way that they can find this out this day will contact the quick response aircraft a quick response team now that's the air force in the country that are in they will tell them that we've lost contact with this aircraft they will dispatch they will lie up and intercept the aircraft all right so this is where you've seen all of these YouTube videos of passengers filming out to the windows when there's fighter jets around they would come up on the left hand side and slightly above us and try to get our inter attention now obviously if that happens to any pilots normally we just throw ourselves onto the second radio tune one two one five get up the volume and ask okay men two three six zero we have a fighter on the left wing please advise and then since they now get us into communication they will tell us what's going on tell us to contact a controller we will do so and if everything is fine the fighter would just make a climbing left-hand turn and let us go on our way now this is not great right this cost a lot of money in the airlines is probably gonna have to pay that so that you have lots to answer to if that happens to you um but the way that could also happen is that we actually have radio failure okay but we haven't communicated it correctly yet and in that case especially if we've flown into an area maybe of military exercises or something like that the the fighter jet might tell us to follow them and the way that they will communicate that is that they will come up slightly above the left and they will rock their wings now we are supposed to respond to that by rocking our wings as well and this is the closed loop so they know that we understand and then they will turn and we are supposed to follow them now if we're in darkness they will do that by blinking their navigational lights instead and we don't have to respond by blinking our own navigational lights the red and green ones out on our wings and then we followed them out to the area now there are also signs that they can give us to where we have to land there's a whole range of different signs that the intercepting aircraft can give to us but it's extremely rare most of the cases they're only there to get us to re-establish radio communication and then there will be out of our way all right now that's if we have made a mistake what if something happens that makes us lose all of our radios as extremely unlikely that that will happen because like I said there's three possibly even for different communication systems that we can use but let's say that a pilot spills a full cup of coffee over the Center pedestal and it actually shorts out our communication system that could happen what do we do well as always when it comes to commercial aviation there is a procedure for that we always have procedures to fall back on even if the most unlikely thing will happen and what we will do in that case depends a little bit on what part of of the flight we're in so if we take off and we're still in visual flight rules VFR rules the tower procedures International Civil Aviation Organization procedures helps us to maintain your visual conditions and land at the nearest clues a suitable Airport in case of commercial flights it's unlikely that we will ever do that because most likely it not be practical to just return back in land and in that case we will follow the procedures for instrument flight rules and on the radar control and under the radar control the procedure tells us to do a couple of things first of all we have to call in blind so whatever frequency we're on we will call it can obviously try all of the different radios and then I will call men to 360 transmitting in blind maintaining flight level 3 5 0 on heading two-five-zero degrees like that the reason we want to transmit in blind is because we don't know if it's just a failure of us receiving the signal maybe a traffic control can still hear us and we try to give as much information as we can we will also put a new school code and there are three different emergency school codes that can be used at 7500 which is unlawful interference hijacking it's 7600 which is loss of communication which is what we're going to use and it's seven seven zero zero which is the emergency general emergency code and in this case we will tune 7600 now that will send a message from our transponder to all the radar units out there that this aircraft has problems with communication and since we're doing that they will now assume we're following the cour procedures and if we're under radar control the Cal proceed yourself is to maintain latest heading and speed and altitude for at least seven minutes we're doing that so that the air traffic control units has time to rearrange traffic around us because they now know what we're going to do after those seven minutes are up then we can resume the flight plan because we have a filed flight plan so we will just turn back onto our flight plan if we were on the radar heading and then we proceed our route towards our destination and towards a predetermined fix could be the initial products or it could be the final approach fix at the same altitude so we're still at cruising level here will go into holding over that point and then at our expected approach time if we've been given one of those from a traffic control maybe this is during the the approach in that we lost the radios for example or as close as possible to our estimated time of arrival our ETA we will start our descent and we will just descend in the holding down to the altitude where we will start approach we will shoot the approach and we will land so the idea is that since we're starting this at our estimated time arrival we will land within 30 minutes of the estimated time of arrival okay that's the procedure so that's what air traffic control will expect to do there are also local procedures so if we're flying for example into one of the major airports in London's long L Stansted there is a specific procedure for that Airport and me as a commander I need to be aware what that procedure is the way to find that is if I'm going to ops manual Part C there will be all air traffic control instructions in there so I'll just look up Stansted and I'll look up what the procedure is and in case it stands that we have to go to predetermine point either Laurel or Abbott which is if you're coming from the south or north we have to go into holding over there for a minimum of five minutes under any circumstance and then they expect us to start shooting the approach and we in a land right and these are different for all of these different major airport so as a foundation you have a cow and then you have specific procedures for each Airport will be so far well what about that flashlights that I was talking about before that well the fact is that every air traffic control tower out there has a very strong flashlight that can be color-coded and that's to be used in order to give instructions to an approaching aircraft or a departing aircraft now it should be said that these procedures are very rarely used and these flashlights or primarily to be used for general aviation VFR flights but it could be used for us as well so if I come in on approach after we follow these procedures and I look at the tower and the tower gives me a steady red light it means abandoning approach okay if I get a flashing red light it means that it's unsafe which means that were probably also abandon the approach and go somewhere maybe to an alternate if I get an alternating red and green light it means take extreme caution and then I could get a full green light which is what I'm hoping for and the full green light indicates you're clear to land but always look out if there's anything else around because they still can't communicate with us now a alternating green light air or flashing green light it means if we have let's say that we got a red light initially and we abandoned approach then we went into holding pattern if we still visual land and we get a all like a flashing green light it means return to the airport and land so there are different color codes depending on you know the situation around but I would expect a steady green light with a common in having followed this procedure and then we would just land taxi in follow a follow me car obviously to the gate because we couldn't communicate where we're going to go and these are one of these circumstances where we have to write a report of the word because it's something that affects the safety it's fairly disruptive for air traffic control it's going to command a lot of resources so it's important that we write where this happened why it happened and so on okay good now if you have more questions about loss of communications which I expect you as always going here put them in into the comment field I hope that you have subscribed to the channel at this 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Channel: Mentour Pilot

Views: 174,021

Keywords: Loss of communication, Radio failure, Mentour pilot, mentour pilot turbulence, mentour pilot take off, abh aviation facts, Aviation facts, Boeing 737, Boeing 737MAX, Boeing 747, Airbus 320, Airbus 350, air traffic control, flight training, air traffic controller job, Fear of flying, nervous flyer tips, nervous flyers how to relax, nervous flyer help, nervous flyer course, videos for nervous flyers, aircraft radios, fear of flying help, ATC, How to become a pilot

Id: fKfDQWvf2tc

Length: 22min 8sec (1328 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020