'Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM Press)'
Abstract
English is the preferred language for communication in the aviation industry. Pilots and air traffic controllers
of different nationalities and proficiency levels interact with each other using a specialized form of English
termed aviation English that comprises of aviation phraseology and “plain English”. Here, miscommunication
could have disastrous consequences. This paper presents the findings of a study that explored instances of
miscommunication in the interaction between pilots and controllers. Miscommunication is defined as a lack of
understanding (or misunderstanding), non-understanding or misinterpretation of messages in communication.
The corpus consists of 30 hours of actual pilot-controller audio communication collected from the Malaysian
airspace. Data were collected from three different frequencies (Alpha, Bravo and Charlie) representing
different phases of the flight. They were analysed qualitatively using conversation analysis techniques. The
study found that miscommunication in pilot-controller communication is due mainly to two main factors,
procedural deviation and problematic instruction or request. The paper concludes by suggesting that pilots and
controllers should adhere to standard phraseology and avoid code-switching from aviation phraseology to plain
English except when it is inadequate for the situation. It also suggests that proper radio discipline should be
maintained
