An additional reason for the "niner" pronunciation is that "nine" and "five" are surprisingly easy to confuse when spoken over a radio. The "niner" and "fife" pronunciations provide a larger distinction.

"Two" and "three" are another trouble-combo. "Two" and "tree" are the official ICAO pronunciations to avoid that mix up.

FWIW, I heard an exchange overnight last night with "two" vs. "three" confusion. Monterey (Mexico) Center was reading a frequency change to an American pilot. The frequency was 123.xx and the controller was NOT using "tree" for "three". It took four back-and-forth exchanges before the American pilot was able to understand it correctly. If he had said "one, two, tree, ...", instead of "one, two, three, ...", it likely would have prevented the confusion.

Interesting. I had never noticed that before.

The "th" digraph is difficult to pronounce for non-native English speakers, and a lot of them seem to pronounce "three" as 'tree", so that may help the case

Have you been to airports or do you know of airports where English is not the prevalent language, but where they will switch to English for "foreign pilots?

Could this have been a malfunction with the door itself? Perhaps, even though the door was disarmed, the girt bar could still be in place, so when someone went to raise the door, it caused the slide to deploy. (IIRC, slides on the 767 are latched with the girt bar so when the door is raised, the slide packet falls from the door [as it raises into the ceiling] and then activates)

Mexico. ATC communications are in Spanish with Spanish-speaking pilots and English with everyone else.

I was really scared listening to Channel 9 approaching PVG. Not only the Chinese ATC talk to the Chinese pilots in Chinese, they also used metric. That is just a bad bad idea in my mind....

Even between Taiwan and Mainland, where the official language is both Chinese Mandarin, the ATC language is different and requires a cross-reference: http://www.ivaocn.org/cn_events/2009..._and_TW_SI.pdf

If a pilot can't tell the difference between 1,000m and 1,000ft given the context, there is a serious problem with their training.

I was more worried on the other end. The ATC was giving instructions in feet in English and meters in Chinese. It was just crazy.

The non-Chinese-speaking pilots would also be less aware of the situation if they don't know what ATC and other airplanes are talking about.

Chinese ATC definitely give instructions in metres in either language - it's the official standard used by the local aviation authorities (along with Russia). The exception may be for aircraft that are heading into neighbouring airspace that uses feet, in which case the aircraft might be switched to the proper altitude in feet prior to handoff.

To the earlier point made about door opening procedures at the gate, I once observed a UA purser telling off a GA and FA on arrival at SEA for not doing this properly (on an sUA 752). Apparently the procedure was for an FA to give a clear thumbs up in front of the door window before the GA opens the door from outside. The FA had given the signal from the aisle seemingly without the purser knowing.

Good Morning Everyone,

The topic of this thread is slide deployment at the gate. Let's focus the discussion around that.

Safe Travels,

J.Edward
UA forum co-moderator

Had a slide deploy several years ago at LAX on a 757 on front door. Scheduled flight was ORD-SAN .. but delay, etc. meant we would hit the noise ban at SAN and diverted to LAX. Announcement came over that pax would be put on a bus from LAX to SAN So, while taxiing to the gate I called Hertz and got a 1-way from LAX to SAN. When we parked I distinctly remember there was no cross check message. Jetbridge positioned to offload from front door (not sure why now thinking about it) and door opened and you could feel the "umph" as the chute deployed between the gate and the jetbridge. Luckily jetbridge operator wasn't hurt.

Took another 45 min to get things cleared away and inspection of jetbridge to ensure it was still functioning. Then they positioned mid-ship and off we went.

I dont think they repack them ,they change out the whole module, there was a big to do in BKK a few years ago when one activated on a 777 when the aircraft was being cleaned. I believe it is a $25-30k event

They replace it with a spare so that the plane can fly but the deployed one will generally be repacked, just not at the airport. It involves sending the deflated slide off-site to a specialist to make that happen. But they do not typically just throw the kit away at that point.

Not sure I am following this account...the aircraft flew with a slide missing? the mechanics had a spare handy and were able to complete the replacement in 45 minutes? if it is the latter, that is impressive work.

sorry.. yeah, sort of a disjointed run-on sentence. We landed late. Parked at gate. Jetbridge at plane door. No "crosscheck" message. Door opened and chute deploys. Delayed disembarkation. :-:

Here's a short video of that slide deployment: