English for Cabin Crew Trainer's Guide - Heinle

UNIT
7 Case study
LEAD IN Speaking
Write the headline to the article in mixed-up form on the board.
For example: criticized to Crew’s incident response take-off
Ask students to work in pairs to put the words in the correct
order to make a headline (Crew's incident response to take-off
criticized). Then ask, What do you think the article will be about?
EXERCISE 1 Reading
Give students time to read through the events and the question. Then
ask them to read the text and put the events in order. Let students check
their answers in pairs before getting feedback in open class.
Answers
1 a 3 b 1 c 7 d 5 e 8 f 6 g 2 h 4
2 The cabin crew moved passengers to other seats and even tried to
release oxygen masks with their ID cards.
Vocabulary in context
Check the following words from the text, all of which are connected with
one thing coming into physical contact with another: hit, strike, bang,
bump. Use mime to show meaning.
EXERCISE 2 Speaking
The aim here is to get students talking about their personal experiences.
Give students time to read through the questions and think of responses.
Ask them to discuss their responses in pairs or small groups. After a few
minutes, get one student from each pair or group to briefl y summarize
the main points of their discussion.
Pre-teaching vocabulary
Check the following phrases: aborting the take-off (suddenly stopping
it); swerving from side to side (moving uncontrollably); white knuckles
(when the joints in the middle of your fi ngers go white because of fear);
jerking from side to side (moving uncontrollably and in a bumpy, violent
way); dart out of a seat (jump and run quickly from a seat); impeding
passengers (blocking them and slowing them down).
EXERCISE 3 Listening
Give students time to read the situation and the questions. Play the
recording. Students listen, take notes, then discuss their answers in
pairs. Get feedback in open class at the end.
EXERCISE 4 Listening
Give students time to read through the tasks. Then play the recording.
Ask students to make notes in preparation for speaking and fi ll in the
missing words in the third task. Let students check their answers in pairs
before getting feedback in open class.
Answers
1 V1: There was instrument failure just before V1, which is the point at
which an aircraft is committed to leaving the ground.
braking: This caused the aircraft to swerve violently.
senior crew member: He was so scared that she could see the veins in
his neck.
people in the Business class section: She could see the fear in their
faces and the knuckles on their hands were white as they held on tightly
to their arm-rests.
communication from the fl ight deck: There wasn’t any (presumably the
crew were too busy trying to control the aircraft).
2 announcements from the captain: The captain’s communication
skills were excellent.
the tyres on the aircraft: All the tyres except three had burst.
the fuel tanks: They were in the wings, so the captain didn’t want the
exit doors over the wings to be opened, although two passengers did
open them; fortunately they did not explode.
passengers behaving selfi shly: One woman with two children jumped
out before them, leaving them at the top of the evacuation slide; one
man was determined to take his briefcase, blocking the escape of other
passengers; two passengers opened the wing doors, despite instructions
not to.
3 1 cope 2 stress 3 competent 4 calm 5 drills 6 approach
CD2 Track 7.6
1 What was the most serious emergency you experienced?
S: One of the most horrible situations I experienced was a fl ight leaving Lusaka,
Africa, and we’d as a crew had a wonderful ten days in Africa doing safari
and all excited about going home, you know, to show our friends all the
wonderful photos, and on take-off at V1 just before V1 which is the point the
aircraft must leave the ground, there was an instrument failure and the pilot
was fl ying the aircraft and needed to have a speed of 140 knots but at V1 at
this point where the aircraft must take off, the captain’s speed went down
to 80 knots so they took an unprecedented decision in aborting the take-off
at V1 and this was unplanned, no crew knew about what was happening.
All we knew that the aircraft suddenly came into brake form and the aircraft
started swerving violently from left to right and I can remember as a junior
stewardess at the time looking at my senior crew member and he had veins
popping out of his neck. He was obviously, you know, really, really scared. My
crew were looking quite terrifi ed. As I looked down the cabin I could see into
the Business class section and I saw fear on people’s faces and their knuckles
were white and stretched as they were grabbing their arm-rests and all this
time the aircraft was shaking violently from left to right; had completely lost
control of, you know, going straight. At the time I felt the nose had lifted
up because I was sitting at the doors one left which is at the front of the
aircraft and I remember feeling the sensation of going up and then feeling
the bang as the nose wheels came back down, but I’ve since been told that
that couldn’t possibly happen so I would imagine that it was just braking at
that crucial point, which was quite severe braking and that in itself created
lots of secondary problems for us as fl ight crew. We had no communication
from the fl ight deck during that initial, sort of, 20/30 seconds. It was a very
frightening experience particularly because as an experienced fl ight crew you
gauge when you are going to be taking off and I knew we’d been going along
that runway for at least 25/30 seconds and gaining speed all the time, so
I knew take-off was imminent and the fact that we were suddenly swerving
and literally going violently from left to right with the wing tips, you know,
virtually touching the ground, was very, very scary and no communication
from the fl ight crew. So that Lusaka experience was one of the most serious
emergency situations I’ve encountered through my fl ying career.
2 Did you ever have to evacuate passengers?
S: That emergency called for an immediate evacuation. The captain did come
on to the announcement at that point and apologized to the passengers
that we had had such an aborted take-off and he quickly explained that his
instruments had failed and he had decided to abort the take-off, but there
was no worries, no problems. We would sit and we were going to taxi back to
the airport. But in fact what had happened through that violent braking, all
the tyres on the aircraft had burst, bar three, so this meant that the captain
had no steering facility which was why the aircraft was jerking so severely
from left to right. So he brought the aircraft to a stop and made another
announcement. He was excellent in communicating with the passengers and
the crew immediately. I mean, you know, I commend his communication skills
on that occasion, but the evacuation had to take place because we couldn’t
move the aircraft and basically the heat from that braking was getting to a
danger point near the fuel tanks, so evacuation via the slides had to take
place. Evacuating the passengers – it was the fi rst time I’d ever had to do
this in my fl ying career and your brain goes into automatic. All the training
that you’ve taken in and absorbed through every year you are fl ying suddenly
comes into play and once the aircraft had stopped and the captain had told
us we were to evacuate, as I said, your training comes into the front and
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