“Pull Up!”
(Tariku Abas Etenesh)
Have you ever read an article that starts with instruction and ends up with questions? Well if you haven’t had that experience, this is your chance to read one. My instruction: Read the following lines and take a few seconds to reflect. Who do you think is involved and in what situation do you think the following dialogue took place?
A: “Pull Up!” “Pull Up!”.
B: “What does ‘pull up’ mean?”
If you guessed it was a conversation between two people where one had no idea of what the instruction “pull-up” meant, well, unfortunately your surmise didn't hit the target. It was an unfortunate exchange between a ground proximity warning system (GPWS) and a captain. The exchange was caught on a cockpit voice recorder just moment before a flight ended in a disastrous crash that claimed the lives of all who were on board, both passengers and crew in an Asian country.
Though shocking any crash and loss of lives in aviation always is, more shocking was the revelation from this specific crash. One of the findings released by accident investigators indicated that the above two lines were part of a long line in the voice recorder. It was learnt that when the crew were unintentionally losing altitude at a point in their flight where the aircraft was not supposed to, the GPWS went off warning the crew to take the necessary measures of assuming a higher flight level to avoid hitting terrain. This being a system that most aircraft are equipped with and that all cockpit crew are supposed to adhere to, any one would expect the captain to react to the warning immediately and avert the danger. Unfortunately, the captain of that flight did not have the level of English language proficiency to understand the instruction he was being given by the GPWS. He was asking his copilot what “pull-up” meant just moments before impact.
You might assume that such incidents are too far fetched to be real, but it has happened on a scheduled domestic flight in one far eastern country (just to avoid name calling).
When I teach Aviation English at the pilot training school of Ethiopian Aviation Academy, I have used this story of an unfortunate pilot, to highlight the seriousness of the responsibility that pilots have. And more specifically, the split-second decision demanding emergency situations they should be prepared to, first by updating themselves with the language of aviation especially for emergency situations, and second by being aware that other might not be as proficient as they might be.
The purpose of this article however, is not to bring the issue again to pilot trainees but to any reader for a totally different end. It is just to bring home the lesson that any one could take from this accident. Weather you are in aviation world or otherwise, this accident has a tale worth a rethinking.
Whose GPWS?
The first reaction I had for that story was blaming the crew. It felt easy to throw stone at an already ill labeled story and its characters. When I went with my blames saying: “The cockpit crew should not have neglected the most important skill of their career.” Only then I felt the blame I threw at him tuned itself into a bold question.
“How many “pull-up” warnings from the GPWS of your own career have you neglected?” I asked myself. What a humbling experience to ask oneself if the GPWS of his responsibilities are wailing for attention or not?
If you are as a macchiato-sipping, group-chat loving, and news paper-reading as I am during weekends, easier would be your search to find some slip ups during discussions, from one or other friend or even from yourself, of having the audacity to claim for one the judge’s bench on issues even distant to our experiences. Being the expert of threads of which one has not in-depth knowledge. I call such situations as being attentive to other’s GPWS warnings.
Here I have to make a basic distinction; I am always for a free speech and unrestrained rights of one to his own views on things that matter to him or her. Say for criticizing the recent parliamentary conduct of the prime minister, or suggesting a lack of vision in the infant cinema industry of the country, or dress styles of the youth or any other issues for that matter would be of interest I have no problem.
Have you ever seen people who otherwise are fine in dictating the terms for others working their job except their own?
“Pull Up” in the cockpit of Ethiopian Sports
I am not a sports man, but that doesn’t exempt me from being exposed to the sports bent the media seemed to have professed for quite sometime now in the whole country.
Have you ever noticed the usual clamor with which almost everyone interested in athletics vows to show the failing seen in Ethiopian Athletics these days? And if your observation is zoomed in only the reaction by interested bodies ,especially after loses in international races, you would notice a lot of “what does pull Up mean “ going on.
When athletes who at the end of the day compete and bring glory to the country and personal gain along with it are subjected to, among others, lack of proper training facilities, lack of proper guideline as to how they could be evaluated as per their personal abilities, and most of all lack of knowledge as to why only the narrow path of personal sacrifice to be and athlete is lavished when there are possibilities to be explored in order to enable athletes with lesser personal price.
When after all the prices paid by the individual athletes against all adds and ultimately fails to get the ‘Gold medal” which seems to be the only medal appreciated, and which in turn put a lot of train on the athletes, everyone , including those at the Athletic federation feel audacious enough to blame it on the athletes. I am not saying that athletes should not be scrutinized when there is a justified reason for it, but not every lose at the track is their fault.
For me the Athletic Federation and through them the country as a whole is giving a deaf ear to the “pull up” warning of the GPWS of the realities for long.
“Pull Up” elsewhere
If you have felt as I did about the tragic accident, let me challenge you with the turn around Ask yourself how many “pull-Up” warnings in you personal, social, and /or work life have you failed to heed to only find yourself crying what does ‘pull-up’ means while losing ground?
Would the fate of a person who is cognizant of the lack of skills or knowledge in an area he claims his own, and not take any proper measure about it be any different from claiming what “does Pull-up means?”
Well, this is the question I would like to wrap up my article with.
What difference is there between that captain and an internationally renowned athlete to fail to ‘sell’ him/herself due to failure to communicate and as a result lose millions of dollars from advert- contracts like for instance Usain Bolt any different from crying “what does pull-up means?” when the high days of his/her career is going down? I see none.
What is the difference between an executive who fails in an international forum to stand up and sell his company products and defend its interests, any different than saying “what does pull-up means?”
What is the difference between a leader of a country who neglects the basic rights of his country men, and claims that he never knew if the people needed it, any different from a captain who failed to heed the GPDW warning?
So if the GPWS in the cockpit of your responsibility at any level suddenly goes off: “Pull- UP”
What will be you answer?
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