The BFU reported that the pilot of the Cessna 172 reported ready for departure and was queried by tower “… guten Morgen, ready for immediate departure?” which the pilot acknowledged with “… is cleared for immediate departure, runway 09 and via November.”, tower confirmed “Ja copied, call you right back.”
That’s bad but really common. Both the pilot and the ATC made mistakes. My guess is that neither the pilot nor ATC could speak much English. The pilot also needs re-training because there is no such phrase at an ATC airport.
For ATC airports, Europe, it has to be: “cleared for takeoff”, readback: “cleared for takeoff”
For AFIS airports, the phraseology is more like the pilot used, and it varies. Sometimes in the UK you get “no known traffic” and that is a hint that you can go. I think the right one is something like “depart at your discretion” and the readback might be “taking off”.
If the controller doesn’t catch the erroneous reply and is ‘busy’ then he or she shouldn’t be in a tower
In much of southern Europe (and that includes France in this case) you could do wrong readbacks all day long and nobody will notice. Ask me how I know 
I think that, at a certain level of ELP, an ATCO can say “cleared for the ILS” but he/she cannot readily tell that you read back “cleared to land”. I think this is a serious point. I am sure I could learn the Spanish/French/Italian version of “cleared for the ILS” in 5 minutes but I sure as hell would not be able to detect a wrong readback unless I spoke the language fluently. Consequently almost nobody down there ever picks up wrong readbacks.
Whereas you even think about a wrong readback with London Control and they will be on top of you in 100 milliseconds and they will drive the point home that next time you climb into that 737 RHS you need to listen! 
Langen Radar… any offers on maybe 50% detection? And Langen speak good English.
The BFU reported that the pilot of the Cessna 172 reported ready for departure and was queried by tower “… guten Morgen, ready for immediate departure?” which the pilot acknowledged with “… is cleared for immediate departure, runway 09 and via November.”, tower confirmed “Ja copied, call you right back.”
“Call you right back” ? and “immediate departure” ?
I have never really thought about the distinction between “departure” and “take off”, but I don’t think I have ever been cleared a departure? I tell the tower I am ready for departure, then receive a clearance for takeoff or line-up etc. Anyway, the tower did several huge mistakes, and the pilot entered the runway without a clearance.
Peter wrote:
Both the pilot and the ATC made mistakes. My guess is that neither the pilot nor ATC could speak much English.
This does drive home the point that using the native language may actually be better for safety, right?
Mistakes happen. The way we communicate and are supposed to read back clearances is designed so that errors can be caught. In this case, the mistake was not caught by the controller. The pilot cannot be blamed for having misunderstood the clearance since he read back what he thought he got. The controller should have caught the mistake and asked him to maintain position.
USFlyer wrote:
Thus, after taxiing and arriving on the RW hold you change frequencies to tower and announce ‘Tower, Cessna zero charlie tango holding short RWnn, ready for takeoff’ – the tower may then say ‘Cessna zero charlie tango cleared for takeoff RWnn’ or ‘Cessna zero charlie tango cleared for departure RWnn’. If the tower does not give the RWnn number make sure you repeat it in your acknowledgment so there is no question which runway will be used.
The word “takeoff” for me is ONLY used when Tower is telling me “D-XXXX, Runway XX, Wind XXX at XX, cleared for take off”, to which I respond accordingly. In your scenario my call will be “D-XXX holding short Runway XX, ready for departure.” If the tower gives me a call using the word “departure”, it is NOT a clearance to enter the runway and, as far as I recall, the reason for this goes back to the ground collision at Los Rodeos airport when the wording “ready for takeoff” was used in a confusing manner, leading to the collision of the Pan Am and KLM 747s…..
Curiously enough, I witnessed a similar incident with the word “departure” at Erfurt earlier this year. A Piper was lined up at the hold and asked whether he was ready for departure. He confirmed and rolled into position on the runway, causing an approaching aircraft to go around. He compounded his mistake because, when the controller told him that he had not been cleared to enter the runway, he assumed it was his clearance to take off and promptly started accelerating down the runway….. Apparently this pilot was Italian and had level 6 language proficiency…..
The link doesn’t work
Which one?
LeSving wrote:
I have never really thought about the distinction between “departure” and “take off”, but I don’t think I have ever been cleared a departure? I tell the tower I am ready for departure, then receive a clearance for takeoff or line-up etc. Anyway, the tower did several huge mistakes, and the pilot entered the runway without a clearance.
Originally, phrases such as “are you ready for immediate take-off” and “ready for take-off” were used. But because of accidents involving misunderstandings, “take-off” was changed to “departure”. The only case “take-off” is used is in the take off clearance.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
That reason cost close to 600 lifes on a foggy day in Tenerife when a hugely respected and experienced 747 captain of a major European airline made a mistake quite similar to the one discussed here.
I remembered too. It’s not everyday two 747s collide.
As with so many things in aviation, one mistake isn’t enough to cause an incident. There are always checks and balances to try to ensure that mistakes are caught.
In this case there were multiple mistakes made.
The C172 pilot reported “ready for departure”. ATC asking if there were ready for an “immediate departure” probably caused the first part of the misunderstanding. Why ask this, if ATC couldn’t give an immediate?
The C172 pilot misunderstood the call, and assumed it was a take off clearance despite the fact that “Take-off” wasn’t used, that “departure” was used and that there was no runway mentioned and the word “Cleared” was never used.
Then ATC failed to pick up the incorrect read back.
The C172 pilot showed very poor skills, but entering a runway without checking BOTH approaches to the runway. This I find most curious. If they are used to operating from a small field, then it’s only a matter of time before someone arrives unannounced or at the wrong end. So it must become instinct to check both ends. If used to operating from a large filed, I’d have thought that their RT would have been more up to speed and they’d be more inclined to notice the subtleties in the phraseology. Perhaps they were used to operating from a small field, and were a little nervous and placed too much reliance on ATC and were trying not to cause delays? (ironic I know).
ATC, who’s job it is to make sure that the runway is clear for landing, failed to notice that something had entered the runway. This could have been another vehicle lost on the airport, or an animal that entered….they are supposed to check the runway. That’s why “tower” operates from a tower high above the ground with big windows, but “Area” can get away with operating from a screen in a room with no windows.
It appears to me that the only party that were switched on and doing their job were the RyanAir crew (who for all the criticism the airline gets, have an excellent safety record).
