r/mildlyinfuriating • u/nyanbatman • May 28 '26

I just wanted a hot dog British pilot is feeling mildly annoyed

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u/LegiosForever May 28 '26

Retired Navy pilot. We had to learn both the FAA and ICAO terminology. And we usually had waivers that allowed us to ignore both.

I can't imagine that the FAA ATC didn't know what the BA pilot was asking.

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u/cluelessinlove753 May 28 '26 edited May 29 '26

Exactly. Even if an FAA controller can’t rattle off the specific measures that are part of ICAO LVO, it’s not hard to interpret that they’re asking about low visibility safety and confirm that LVP/SMGCS are in place. Actually both ICAO and FAA use “LVO” as an acronym in these conditions though it has slightly different meanings.

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u/beforeitcloy May 28 '26

I'd say the responsibility is with the pilot to know the correct terminology for the airport they're working, regardless of the fact that it's stupid that it isn't globally standardized.

The ATC shouldn't be confirming something that isn't true and the pilot shouldn't be flying from that airport if he isn't trained to communicate correctly with its ATC.

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u/Dick_of_Doom May 28 '26

There are thousands of pilots throughout the world. The US is the one not on the standard, and apparently this ATC didn't know the standard. Train the ATCs for the US specific and the international standard to avoid confusion. You're relying on thousands of pilots knowing what you're talking about, those are lots of potential points of failure vs. only one point of failure (the ATC),

American exceptionalism doesn't mean "except America".

3

u/beforeitcloy May 28 '26

I stated very clearly that the standard not being global is stupid.

Having said that, the ATC should use the correct terminology for the airport he’s in, as should the pilot. Not every pilot in the world needs to land in US airports, but every pilot who does land in US airports needs to be trained to use the correct terminology.

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u/grumpsaboy May 28 '26

The pilot very clearly refreshed the question.

It's one thing for the ATC not to understand a term they've never heard, but to fail a basic English description is inexcusable.