If I were flying today, I would always have the EGPWS up on any departure. Shame on the crews who do not do that. And, shame on those crews who do not exercise command authority on a timely basis.

Sounds more like freeway instruction on a GPS.

Like a Garmin street GPS I used to have. "Ms. Garmin" spoke in vague terms with an attitude.

It is a valid phraseology. However it should be used for directing VFR traffic not IFR , it also can ( and is ) be used for calling out conflicting traffic.

To provide a direction or suggested headings to VFR aircraft as a method for radar identification or as an advisory aid to navigation.PHRASEOLOGY−(Identification), PROCEED (direction)−BOUND, (other instructions or information as necessary)

page 119 https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/ATC.pdf

Also - In this case, to disambiguate an instruction to a non-english native speaker it wasn't such a bad idea ?

Many years ago during class room stuff instructor cited an accident out of LAX where a crew were under radar and given a vector to the west, where upon radar forgot about them and they crashed in the mountains, think it was a GA type. The lesson he was imparting to we newbies was even if you're under radar keep a plot by whatever means (long before GPS) as to your location and speak up when in doubt.

A USAF C-135 (707) took off North from El Toro airbase in SoCo for Hickam AB Hawaii and did not turn left towards the sea and went into the mountains soon after take off

Nothing but ocean west of LAX.

There was a Cessna 182 being vectored into Burbank, a shift change, and the ATC forgot about him. Crashed several minutes later into the San Gabriel Mountains. Total lack of situational awareness by the CFI-I.

El Toro was not designed to be a jet transport airbase. I always felt that crew got sucked in. Had they had competent support, they would have departed to the south.

That tragic accident was one of the arguments against converting El Toro into a "major international airport."

Very interesting - many thanks for the info,

Arriving or departing into LAX (coming in from the UK) we always know we usually land into the sunset (often amazing) and take off straight out over the sea and then turn back.
Common SA kicks in even as a pax.
Not sure iirc if I have ever taken off the other way since 1982

I recall flying at night to Palm Springs a few times on a small commuter turboprop (yuk) and note their departure profile and the staged climb to get over the mountains before following down the valley to PS

Of course you're correct, meant east, but of course it meant they ended up going west.

I recently heard (from a non-US approach control), out of the blue, "callsign Right One Orbit!". My FO flying didn't hear/understand the radio call. I hit heading select and rotated the heading bug about 180 degrees. We started turning, and my FO asked me what was happening. I told him ATC just told us to do fly "Right One Orbit". He said he didn't know what that meant. I said I was pretty sure we were to turn right and start holding. Sometimes things are non-standard, in many places...

"Pretty sure" has the potential to get any of us into a lot of trouble. Did you ask for clarification of the instruction " ... Right One Orbit"? What was the approach controller's response to your read back?

Cheers,
Grog

I thought Orbit is what the Space Station does. And, John Glen did three orbits in 1962 in a Mercury capsule.

Easterlies at LAX are more common than you might believe. Next time, as your landing slows, just look at all the tyre marks on the runways from easterly landings https://www.google.com/maps/place/LA...!4d-118.404025 .

Every night from around 11:00 PM to 6:00. But, departures are to the west unless wind limits dictate departing to the east, which was the case the early morning when EVA departed.

I told him "Right one orbit", and he said nothing. When we came back around towards our original heading, he told us "Two more orbits". I told him no, that we would be too low on fuel, and we would take the shorter runway (which he wanted us to take in the first place). The controllers acted like they were maxed out in capability, but there were actually very few aircraft in their airspace...kind of like the opposite of ORD, JFK HKG, or LAX...