A lot about nothing

Yeah, I don't see what could possibly go wrong.

http://www.greatdreams.com/planes/20...am-2-25-09.jpg

Those folks would probably be comforted knowing their last dying breaths were drawn so a future air-traffic controller could learn his craft at the tender age of 6.

I've always wondered about the language issue with pilots. If you're a pilot flying from Los Angeles to Tokyo, do you have to speak both English and Japanese? That seems unlikely. Do all control towers use English? That also seems unlikely. Do international planes have some sort of auto-translator or a human translator? Those also seem unlikely.

As for the kid, I'm sure they were watching him like a hawk, but as noted above, this is JFK Airport in New York. If the kid messes up a word or decides to have fun and improvise, things could get really, really bad really, really fast.

You really think letting the kid say "prepare for takeoff" a coupe of times is going to end up with that? Give me a ****ing break.

He wasn't actually controlling anything. He was being fed extremely basic lines and simply said them. Anything more complicated than that was still handled by the dad.

He shouldn't have done it for the sake of keeping his job, but I struggle to see anything legitimately wrong or dangerous about this.

English is the standard and default language worldwide for the airlines.

I can't imagine the French liking that, but either way, it's great to be an American.

So if you're Iranian and you want to fly for Air Mullah or whatever, or you're Chinese and you want to fly for Air Shenzen, you have to learn to be a pilot AND to speak English?

Yeah, the odds are low, but I had no idea what the kid was talking about in the second line, and I doubt he did, either: "Let's see your Air Mexico 403 Kennedy, runway through left position and hold." I'd rather them gamble with their own lives than mine, even if the odds are low. No reason to let a kid get on the microphone at one of the most congested air spaces in the world. What if the kid decided to yell, "Terrorists! Land all your planes right now!" Kids do that kind of stuff sometimes.

As I understand it, yes. At least with airlines that fly internationally.

LMAO LMAO

WTF is going on with pilots and controllers??? Pilots that get drunk and fly, or fall asleep and over shoot the airports by hundreds of miles, fights with the crew, flight attendants fighting with each other causing flight cancellations. Don't these people take their jobs seriously anymore with hundreds of lives at stake?

Next thing we'll probably hear about is a kid in a operating room asking the nurse to pass the spatula er scapel.

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."

Yes, you must speak English worldwide for air communications.

Isn't that Pilot Training 101, "You must speak English"?

Good thing he didn't let you text message while you were driving the train.

"Let's see your Air Mexico 403 Kennedy, runway through left position and hold."

As long as the aircraft knew what he meant then I am cool with it.

There was no danger folks .... nothing to see here.