The pilots of a TAP Air Portugal flight from Lisbon to Nice in the Côte d’Azur got themselves into a very confusing conversation with air traffic control after they tried to ask for an expedited approach for landing when all of the toilets onboard stopped working. The request from the pilots of the Embraer E190…

The plane’s toilets weren’t working. The air traffic controller understood “pilots” for “toilets.” You can read the transcript or listen to the voice recordings.

  • Eager Eagle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    7 days ago

    I’m shocked some people are saying she didn’t communicate it clearly.

    • ATC repeatedly tried to guess things and made the situation worse instead of asking for an explanation or to spell the word/problem. “Are you declaring an emergency?”, “is your autopilot inoperative?”, “do you have a medical problem?”, “we suspect the aircraft has no pilot”.
    • “pilots are inoperative” is not how anyone would say it
    • who wouldn’t declare an emergency in that case?
    • what non-pilot would be so calm if they were flying the plane?

    She even explains why a toilet is used (so passengers can relieve themselves).

    It seems to me that the first controller planted the idea that she said they had no pilots, and everyone else just took that as a fact.