Anybody share my irritation at hearing the term "souls on board" being used in emergency situations? Why not just use something less melodramatic like persons on board? Maybe I'm being too pedantic but let me explain...
I've just been listening to an ATC recording of a BMI emergency at Dublin a while back and the controller came on and asked if they could give the "souls on board". It was only a minute or two into the emergency (smoke in the cockpit - returning to land at EIDW) so I would have thought giving that info was the least of the crew's worries. As it happens the controller got no response and even several minutes later a rescue vehicle asked Ground the same question to which the reply was "we're still trying to ascertain that". Obviously the crew was busy flying the plane from a smoky cockpit and rightly thought this request way down their list of priorities.
I don't know where and when this term originated - probably in a Hollywood movie by the sounds of it - but I felt after hearing that recording that the professionality of the flight crew was being undermined by the people on the grounds' doom-impending attitude in referring to the passengers and crew already being condemmed to a certain death. I know it's a global term so I don't mean to criticise the Dublin ATC personally - it's just a gripe I have hearing that and reading accident reports. Why not just use some term like "persons on board" and leave the rest to Hollywood
