Havoc in Heraklion International airport

Russian speaking pilot reeks havoc in Heraklion International airport.

           A tragic  last year's dialogue between a pilot of fire fighter helicopter and the Air Traffic 
Controllers brings unrest in aviation community. It came to light today by Onalert.gr as it was confused with today's minor incident, when a Russian pilot took and wrong turn.In today’s case a pilot of a charter aircraft, according to Heraklion international airport head master, Mr.Damvouneli, simply turned the aircraft to the west side of the runway during taxi, instead of east. The misunderstanding was solved immediately, without any further problem.

As for the audio dialog it was a mishap that happened last summer, and not today. Never the less, this dialogue disturbs me deeply and make me thing what that idiot helicopter pilot was thinking. It is clear from the audio tape that that idiot pilot has almost no clue how to speak English. He took off with no clearance, while a clearance to take off was delivered to an Olympic airways (Now Olympic Air) airliner aircraft full with people. As the air traffic controller says in Greek the pilot in this incident was Russian, when she couldn`t any more hold her laughter and braked the transitions in Greek as did the Olympic airways pilot.

Voice document link

It is worth to mention that since then new regulations about pilot licensing came in force and now is mandatory to be tested and certified in English language proficiency, in order to fly in international airport and airspace. When I undertook my test I thought that it was all for nothing, just another that CAA made up in order to create revenue for the flight schools, but after that oh my god. I could not comprehend that something like that could happen. Of course some small mistakes are always understandably happening but to this extend and with that magnitude…UNACCEPTABLE