I have listened to the ATC tape several times and I think this entire incident was caused by EVA015. At about 1:16 they read back 'left heading 180'. Now somebody* got their left and right mixed up, but the 180 degrees direction is pretty clear, and yet they turned north. From then on, despite repeated instructions by ATC, EVA015 does virtually the opposite of what is asked, bringing it into conflict with Air Canada 788. This takes up valuable time while the controller tries to resolve that problem. The EVA015 radio pilot sounds more and more stressed and you can hear someone else in the cockpit shouting at him.
I think that the ATC instruction to turn 'southbound' is also pretty clear, given that EVA015 had ignored or failed to act on all the headings given since they initially turned the wrong way from 090, and were actually heading northbound. I am sure the controller was trying to give EVA015 some situational awareness here.
(Did EVA015 initially turn left onto 018 degrees, instead of 180 degrees, so thought they were following the instructions?)
A couple of points about the RT comms. I don't think the controller was at fault, but she was taking up time by giving frequency changes (to others) twice, e.g: "one one nine decimal nine five, nineteen ninety five", which is unnecessary and a bad habit. Also use of non standard phrases can be misunderstood. 'Nineteen ninety five' for example might not mean anything to a level four English speaker, who may be able to use standard RT phraseology to fly a plane, but might not be able to speak or understand conversational English, so this is another bad habit to avoid.
Secondly, although it did not cause a direct problem here - and they were not at fault at all - you can clearly tell that Air Canada 788 has not got a windshield on his microphone, so all his transmissions are distorted. Such poor quality transmissions do not help general understanding and SA. Also, unprotected mics will fill up with spit etc, so the noise cancelling function will stop working and then comms will become more and more difficult, but you - the speaker - will not realise why ATC cannot understand you properly.
*The EVA015 radio guy later seemed confused again: "left....right", and English is clearly not his first language.
Last edited by Uplinker; 22nd Dec 2016 at 12:50.