Uplinker, I think you are missing the point.
The aircraft started various turns in response to instructions from Atc.
Give someone a turn through 270 degrees to turn to 180 and the aircraft will, at some point turn through north.
When it is pointing in the northerly direction give it another instruction to turn right and it will head generally north while the angle of bank comes off and the right turn commenced.
Issue another instruction and the right turn comes off and a left turn commenced, all the while the aircraft heads generally northish.
Would an native English speaking crew have handled it differently, possibly, but they weren't put in that position. It was a crew with English as a second (third or fourth) language.
On another point I am not sure what the panic was re air Canada. The webtrack (I don't know how accurate this is) on face value has plenty of vertical separation between the two, despite the various level off instructions given by the controller. The webtrack may not give the complete (or accurate) story but by the time the two aircraft got close there were thousands of feet vertical separation according to the webtrack labels. Davereiduk's screen shot shows that there is close to 6000ft vertically between the two aircraft.
Last edited by Snakecharma; 28th Dec 2016 at 21:26.