Just wow! This guy just can't get his clearance right

I think this was posted a few months ago but kudos to the controller for keeping his cool.
 
Boy! Might've been a new IFR pilot, but he was really behind the 8 ball. Nice controller!
 
I just can't bring myself to listen to the entire recording.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I refuse to even start to listen to it. Too afraid it will cause anguish. (real reason: too afraid it will be me)
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Confession. I did something like it although not quite as bad or as long. I filed IFR via ForeFlight and had my expected clearance, which did not include a SID. Expecting something simple, I called CD. The controller had a heavy accent and when he tossed in the SID, we went back and forth a bit because I could not figure out what he was saying.

Of course, had I not been so complacent, I would have looked at the DPs for the airport, found there was only one SID out if there and realized there was a better than 90% chance it would be given.

The airport? Ft Lauderdale Exec. The SID? The LAUDERDALE Departure! How I felt about it?

facepalm.jpg
 
I have had a few rough situations myself. The worst I recall was a very scratchy RCO CD (and not realizing that taxiing a bit to a different spot would get better reception), coupled with an unexpected long-ish clearance and unfamiliar fix names, with three first-time Angel Flight passengers (including a small infant) on board. Took forever to try to figure out Who's on First, until eventually we departed VFR (despite Angel Flight's strong recommendation to fly the "mission legs" IFR).
 
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That sounds like what might have happened if I asked my wife (non-pilot, hates anything with numbers in it) to call ground for a clearance.

Things would have gone a little better for him if he was not convinced that he heard the word "equipment" every time the controller said "quitman".
 
I was flying single pilot into Denver once and had recently gotten a way with "not on board" several times when given an arrival. I bet unwisely this time and received the "standby to copy" instead of the vectors I was hoping for. The GPS I had required manual input of coordinates and was in a different format than the pubs so it required conversion. After his lengthy description and several clarifications I realized it would have been much easier just to have it and fly it as published. Fortunately there was enough distance between points that I was able to build it one step at time and keep up (barely) but it was a painful lesson to learn on being ahead of the jet and being prepared.
 
Brad Z said:
That sounds like what might have happened if I asked my wife (non-pilot, hates anything with numbers in it) to call ground for a clearance.

Things would have gone a little better for him if he was not convinced that he heard the word "equipment" every time the controller said "quitman".
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Speculating completely, and relating it to my own error, I thought I heard two things. One was what I did, not looking at applicable SIDs. If he did, I think Quitman would have been obvious; it's a real simple SID and Quitman VOR is just about on a direct line between his departure and destination airports.

The other is a very common error. The way he read (or tried to read) back the clearance and the sheer number of errors in the readback made me think of a very common error - trying to understand the clearance instead of just acting as speech-to-text recorder, and then asking questions. He was obviously thrown by the "equipment"/"quitman" thing but the ways he tries to get clarification suggests he didn't get much of anything else either.
 
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This was posted and discussed in February.


Wonder if the guy knows he's "famous"?
 
I sympathize with pilot. Although he could be paying little bit more attention and should have reviewed the procedure to know what to expect but if you don't don't get it right after couple of attempt , a fear of public embarrassment takes over your brain and it can seriously go down from there including total brain freeze. It can happen to any of us. To change departure runway after going through all this was not very smart thing to do though. Think about it you do this once in a blue moon and its not your familiar environment. Professional jocks OTOH fly this procedure regularly and after 4th or 5th flight at the same airport light bulb lights up in their head and pretty much know what to expect. There is nothing magical about professional guys its just by doing it often it gets easier
 
How many waypoints can you manage in one ATC instruction? 3 is about normal. 5 is pretty good. If you are familiar with the route, its going to be higher. Have to get the spelling right.
 
One of my training techniques to train new ground controllers (they are also clearance delivery) when they rattle off a clearance is to take them downstairs with a pen and paper, to the recorder, replay what they just said and tell them to write it down while listening to the recording. It sends the message home that a clearance needs to be clear and concise for the pilot to understand and slow enough for them to write it down.
 
Sounds like the mooney pilot was not even close to being prepared for any clearance that involved a pre flight.
 
Timbeck2 said:
One of my training techniques to train new ground controllers (they are also clearance delivery) when they rattle off a clearance is to take them downstairs with a pen and paper, to the recorder, replay what they just said and tell them to write it down while listening to the recording. It sends the message home that a clearance needs to be clear and concise for the pilot to understand and slow enough for them to write it down.
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Totally agree but I'd say in this case, the controller wasn't talking that fast and was quite clear. I can also under standard if the Mooney pilot didn't get everything the first time and maybe came back with "what's the transition name again?" But to screw up a read back that many times, to not have checked that CD is only open when tower is closed and then to jack up the taxi? Either inexperience or it's time to hang up the IFR and stick with something a little less demanding.
 
Timbeck2 said:
To be honest, I didn't watch/listen to the link.
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Well, it is painful.

One of the techniques I carried over from ATC to IFR, were the control symbols and abbreviations from ch2. Works great with CRAFT.
 
I had one years ago in KBED.
I filed IFR to KTEB. Night, cold and snowing.
Anyway, I called CD, and he gave me the clearance. I don't care if it was the most experienced pilot in the world that doubled as a handwriting teacher. Nobody, but nobody could have written as fast as this guy was talking (and garbling is words). It seemed like he was in a hurry to go somewhere.
The clearance contained several instructions. It was NOT a cleared as filed.
So I replied "Please say again slowly".
His reply: "Readback correct, contact ground for taxi".
WTF?! He wasn't even listenning. It could have been worse, I could have actually read back the clearance with mistakes, and he would have said correct, and I would have thought that my mistakes were correct.
I don't remember my exact words to him, but I gave it to him in a polite way.
I went to the FSDO in KTEB to comlain about him.
My guess is that there was a ball game on in the tower or something that was distracting him.
 
Sounds like a normal day at TEB. With all the IFR traffic they have to move, I'm not surprised.
 
At 7 minutes, that's not the longest clearance readback I've heard. This controller was a saint.

N1956S-Clearance_and_Takeoff.mp3.zip

If this sounds familiar, this was the clearance for the flight that generated the "Accuracy of my instruments" meme.

N1956S-Departure.mp3.zip

<edit: zipped because the board doesn't like .mp3>

--Carlos V.
 

Attachments

  • N1956S-Clearance_and_Takeoff.mp3.zip
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  • N1956S-Departure.mp3.zip
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Timbeck2 said:
One of my training techniques to train new ground controllers (they are also clearance delivery) when they rattle off a clearance is to take them downstairs with a pen and paper, to the recorder, replay what they just said and tell them to write it down while listening to the recording. It sends the message home that a clearance needs to be clear and concise for the pilot to understand and slow enough for them to write it down.
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Used to make them redo the ATIS if they recorded it at 500 kts! Ooh they were ****ed!
 
Unbeliever said:
At 7 minutes, that's not the longest clearance readback I've heard. This controller was a saint.

N1956S-Clearance_and_Takeoff.mp3.zip

If this sounds familiar, this was the clearance for the flight that generated the "Accuracy of my instruments" meme.

N1956S-Departure.mp3.zip

<edit: zipped because the board doesn't like .mp3>

--Carlos V.
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Hahaha. Wow. My first IFR flight without an instructor was with my family, and I had to get a super long clearance since I was going from T67 (fort worth, hicks) to some airport in Denver. I had a little bit of trouble with the clearance, but it was because the controller forgot I was /A not /G or /I, but the big issue with all my clearances is the time delay. My airport is 5 miles from two class D airports which are training and fed-ex airports, so after I get a clearance I have to wait about 30 - 40 minutes for traffic clearance. Then they give me a new clearance because things changed elsewhere.

Also... I wish controller would ALWAYS spell fixes and vors instead of just saying the word because I always spell them wrong.
Like they will say a route clearance like vectors to maverick radial 285 to Ferra, then direct Bowie, then Guthrie, then plainview, then then texico tango xray oscar, then anton chico, then as filed. And most of those were not on my flight plan, so I am struggling to write down what they said then find it on the chart. The following might take longer to say, but I swear I could copy and understand exactly what they want every time:
vectors to Tango tango tango radial 285 to Foxtrot echo romeo romeo alpha, then direct Uniform Kilo Whiskey, then Golf Tengo Hotel, then Papa Victor Whiskey, then Tengo X-Ray Oscar, then Alpha Charlie Hotel, then as filed.

Anyways... I digress. :p
 
San Carlos KSQL has long VFR clearances, so long that my radio has a feature that it stops transmitting after 30 seconds, so I have to remember to pause while reading back clearance.
 
forseth11 said:
Hahaha. Wow. My first IFR flight without an instructor was with my family, and I had to get a super long clearance since I was going from T67 (fort worth, hicks) to some airport in Denver.
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Like they will say a route clearance like vectors to maverick radial 285 to Ferra, then direct Bowie, then Guthrie, then plainview, then then texico tango xray oscar, then anton chico, then as filed. And most of those were not on my flight plan, so I am struggling to write down what they said then find it on the chart. The following might take longer to say, but I swear I could copy and understand exactly what they want every time:
vectors to Tango tango tango radial 285 to Foxtrot echo romeo romeo alpha, then direct Uniform Kilo Whiskey, then Golf Tengo Hotel, then Papa Victor Whiskey, then Tengo X-Ray Oscar, then Alpha Charlie Hotel, then as filed.

Anyways... I digress. :p
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:D Makes me think of the pre-set up clearance scratchpad page in ForeFlight. Great for "radar vectors to [first waypoint], then as filed". Not so much for longer point to point to point clearances.
 
To me, equally annoying as his fumbled clearance was the text at the end of the video. Whatever (I'm hoping not actual controller, don't know anything about that meme site) yahoo that made that video put text in at the end suggesting somehow that ATC maybe shouldn't have allowed that pilot to depart. It references his fumbled clearance and the distance of the flight :eek2: If I had this pilot on my frequency after the second mess up I would have cleared him radar vectors to VOR at the end of the departure then as filed. Non of ATC's business about the max range of each individual aircraft (which this flight is withing a Bravo's range). It's not up to me to police pilot FARs. I'm just here to safely and expeditiously move airplanes. Sorry to disappoint anybody but I just don't have time to pull out POH's, check each N number for all mod's, then compute the winds aloft, wx at the destination, what alternate may or may not be filed and if they have the required fuel to do it all after guessing if they operate LOP or ROP. Okay, I know I read too deep into this...rant over.
 
Okay since this thread got legs, I decided to listen to the entire recording. I'm wondering if this is an older pilot with some hearing issues, who learned to fly back when they actually had to say "over" after a radio transmission. I'm thinking he was obviously IFR rated at some point but has forgotten everything there is about flying IFR. As a controller, I would have lost it when he asked for a different runway.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Okay since this thread got legs, I decided to listen to the entire recording. I'm wondering if this is an older pilot with some hearing issues, who learned to fly back when they actually had to say "over" after a radio transmission. I'm thinking he was obviously IFR rated at some point but has forgotten everything there is about flying IFR. As a controller, I would have lost it when he asked for a different runway.
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I agree that this pilot seems to be behind the IFR power curve. I guess I just have a special place in my heart for GA and give them a lot more hand holding when needed. While I understand many controllers are in your boat about the runway request, I wouldn't have been bothered by it at all. The departure procedure isn't runway specific. The winds were variable at 5. Didn't seem to be much in the way of other traffic so it can't hurt asking for the different runway. Worst thing the controller can say is no.
 
My guess is the pilot is used to getting direct destination with no SID for a majority of his flying and when he got this clearance, it threw him off guard.
 
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