“All right, roger that”
I never heard such a phrase. Where did he get "All right" from? Bizarre.
Agreed, I have been unhappy with the phrases used since they were first reported. Are MAS procedures such that sloppy phraseology would be used? Certainly not with the Big Airline I flew for.
If not, was it the crew trying to indicate a HJ? Or HJacker using the R/T?
I wonder what the full context of all the transmissions is? Is there a recording or transcript that includes all comms up until that point with a sense of time between tx?
I live in San Francisco Bay Area and I've heard, just as a for-instance, from the lips of Very Big Airlines pilots, the following or similar, after tower issues a new frequency change instruction to a departing flight: "Aloha, switching," with the tower replying, "Aloha."
No freq read-backs, but apparently the planes continue on to Hawaii without incident, dozens of times each day.
The nonstandard in the above example was preceded by a bunch of tx that were more standard, all contributing to help everyone build a mental picture of what's going on, with the signoff being casual. All frequencies are well-known to all parties. And that's a tame example. I've heard way more nonstandard stuff that would baffle a foreign pilot, like instructions to helis to hold over the 'stick (Candlestick park, a sports stadium north of the airport). You could argue these practices threaten flight safety, but frankly SFO does ok safety-wise given flight volume.
As others have pointed out if the route is frequent and both pilot and tower are local, this happens even more. It's human nature.
Think about the shorthand you develop with your loved ones. Other people outside your family may not always understand 100%, but it doesn't mean you do it with evil intent. It's human nature. Technically I should have written, "It is human nature," because given the international nature of this forum, some people may have a harder time parsing contractions. In this case I'm gonna risk it and figure 99% of readers will have little difficulty understanding contractions and the odd nonstandard word. I like to live on the edge.
Point is, in order to make the judgement that this transmission was anything other than normal, we would need the full transcript, PLUS enough other transcripts to judge how this particular pilot tended to phrase things.
This could be completely normal for him, or not. Bit I'm uncomfortable plucking one phrase out of what is a conversation, and coming to specific conclusions.
Happy to revise my opinion if it is shown this was really out-character.
jm