Description

The speed and timeliness of transmissions make important contributions to the communications process:

• If the transmission is too fast, the recipient may be unable to copy it correctly;
• If a transmission is received at a time of high workload, it may be incorrectly copied or misunderstood.

Effects

Unless a message is copied correctly, its content may be misunderstood or not correctly acted upon.

A message which is received at a time of high pilot workload may disrupt a sequence of actions being followed such as a check-list and one or more items may then be missed when it is resumed.

The necessity to repeat an incompletely copied or understood message can take time better used on other matters.

Defences

Transmissions must be conducted concisely in a normal conversational tone; full use must be made of standard phraseologies wherever these are prescribed in relevant ICAO documents or procedures.