Japan runway near miss - ATC terminology suspected..

[eppy]

In Japan recently a JAL 747 with 446 passengers started its takeoff roll whilst another JAL jet was on the same runway.

According to the newpaper article, the controller told the aircraft that it was "expected to be cleared for takeoff soon" but the pilots started their roll after the words "cleared for takeoff" were spoken as part of the sentence.

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/428379

Its amazing that qualified use of critical phrases still occurs, leading to such misunderstandings. Could someone confirm (or otherwise) my understanding that a golden rule of ATC phrasology is to never qualify critical phrases such "cleared for takeoff" with qualifiers such as "not" "will be", etc. with the one exception of "cancelled"?

[PHL Approach]

Wow, and how often do they say in CTI programs and OKC to never use the word "Cleared" other than "cleared to land, takeoff" and of course a 'clearance'  . I know it's even frowned upon for ramp controllers to say "cleared for pushback" rather "Push approved". I wonder if it's mention in their books not to mention cleared and it was a bad mistake or they just don't teach that.

[Lezam]

Same thing happens with foreign pilots at JFK, sometimes they just dont understand what the controller is saying

[tyketto]

This is, of course, depending on what proper phraseology is in Japan, since this appears to have happened at RJCC. Their phraseology may be different than the US, Canada, ICAO, what have you. So 'cleared' may be valid there. Unless there's some documentation somewhere, it's hard to tell.

BL.

[Amante de Aviones]

It probably does have to do with different teminolgy there.  An example is in the Canada and the states they say "Position and hold"  whilst in Europe the say " Line up and wait"

[tyketto]

It probably does have to do with different teminolgy there.  An example is in the Canada and the states they say "Position and hold"  whilst in Europe the say " Line up and wait"

And that would be the difference between N. America (FAA/CAA) and ICAO. It's the same pretty much everywhere else in the world (they use line up/wait in Australia as well), so it all depends on what phraseology is standard there.

Language barrier only compounds the issue.

BL.

[Scrapper]

While I'm no expert in Tower control in Canada, I'm pretty certain "Position and Hold" is US only. If I'm not mistaken, in Canada, the current terminology is "Taxi to position runway XX". But we're going off on a tangent here... regardless of terminology, certain words are only ever used for certain things, so they are not confused... I bet you if this is not the case in Japan, it will certainly be a topic of discussion in the ensuing investigation!

[penguin44]

It probably does have to do with different teminolgy there.  An example is in the Canada and the states they say "Position and hold"  whilst in Europe the say " Line up and wait"

Efective April 10, 2008 Air Traffic Contol will be changing some instruction phraseology to be more in line with ICAO standards.  These changes will be reflected in the next update of the AIM manual.
The term " TAXI TO POSITION" or "TAXI TO POSITION AND WAIT" will no longer be used.
The new terms replacing this are:
"LINE UP" or "LINE UP AND WAIT"
This is not a takeoff clearance but only an instruction to line up on the runway and wait for a takeoff clearance.

This is from Transport Canada.

[Scrapper]

Interesting... I had heard rumours about this... Line up Runway 23 and wait... I guess the tower controllers will have to all get used to it... wonder how long they'll be saying "taxi to position, Uh, I mean line up rnwy 23" haha... Not too long ago (at least a year if not more though) the runway #s here in Halifax changed and the controllers still occasionally can be heard saying "Contact departure when airborne, cleared for takeoff runway 24, correction 23", haha!