Korean Air pilots ICAO English level 6 fraud!
An expat colleague was totally frustrated and aghast at what he termed as fraud in the ICAO English level 6 certifications attained by Korean Air pilots. He was recently in the cockpit as the third pilot for landing at a European airport as required by KE company policy. Almost every ATC instruction had to be repeated a few times before the pilots could barely understand it. Readbacks were atrocious and he had to intervene several times just to satisfy the exasperated ATCers!
As he was in the cockpit, the PIC delegated the landing to the copilot to conduct an autoland and the skipper operated the radios. He couldn't believe the level of incompetency as far as understanding of ATC clearances was concerned.
After landing the PIC commented that my colleague was helpful but remarked that he could have handled the ATC well as he could reconfirm and reconfrim all clearances as many times as required in order to get it right as it was company policy. A couple of times, OK I guess, but repeatedly several times? The PIC then proudly showed his ICAO English level 6 certification on his licence with an expiry date of 2099! Holy cow!
I came to know that the test agencies in Korea produce scripted answers to their tests which were diseminated to some favored Korean pilots who memorized, and then regurgitated the whole lot during the tests...lo and behold they acquired their coveted ICAO English level 6.
I had personally flown with some Latin Americans with ICAO level 6 English but who were totally at sea with ATC instructions as well as some normal conversational English! Apparently some test agencies in Korean are run by some Americans of Latin American descent and they awarded their fellow latinos level 6 English without much ado. I also heard that some Koreans and Japnese pilots went to some dodgy Canadian joint and got awarded level 6 English as well!
The funny thing I learnt was a Canadian of South African descent and some Singaporeans were only given level 4 or 5 eventhough their English was excellent, they having no problems with English ATC or ATC English or conversational English for that matter! This was because they did not follow the scripted response in their English tests conducted by the Korean test agencies.
Regulatory bodies should take action against such fraudulent awarding of ICAO English level 6. The pilots with such dodgy qualifications are a real hazard and menace. They clog up the airwaves besides creating a danger to themselves and others with their flaky understanding of ATC instructions and clearances.
I CAN VOUCH THAT THE ABOVE IS 100% TRUE!
What was even more crazy was a native English speaker, an Aussie recruit, failed his ICAO English test at KAL and was sent home! True, they have the quirky accent in 'Straya but a native English speaker failing an oral English test? Come on!