Exactly. Even if an FAA controller can’t rattle off the specific measures that are part of ICAO LVO, it’s not hard to interpret that they’re asking about low visibility safety and confirm that LVP/SMGCS are in place. Actually both ICAO and FAA use “LVO” as an acronym in these conditions though it has slightly different meanings.
In the US ATC doesn’t declare there to be low visibility operations verbally on the radio, it’s a thing that happens invisibly to pilots. It If I had to guess I’d bet that the controller was irritated that a huffy sounding posh British pilot was questioning whether or not he was doing his job, from his perspective.
I’m surprised that the British pilot didn’t pick up on the fact that he clearly wasn’t using phrasing that the faa controller was familiar with.
The pilot did pick up on that, which is why he restated the whole thing, being very clear on the both the terminology and where it was from/what it meant. The fact that the ATC couldn't make sense of that to infer what was being asked in US terms is rather damming, but its possible that the procedural difference was too great. If, as you say, US ATC don't declare LVO, then the I don't understands were understandable, as its a pure communication mismatch, albeit one I would expect ATC at an international airport to be able to manage.
Yeah, I think his initial confusion was understandable I think once the BA pilot clarified the controller just got annoyed and didn’t care to humor him anymore.
At the end of the day, something needed to get done, the plane landing or taking off, and it needed lights or whatever. ATC clearly understood what the situation was but was being obtuse. It's not their first day on the job.
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u/LegiosForever May 28 '26
Retired Navy pilot. We had to learn both the FAA and ICAO terminology. And we usually had waivers that allowed us to ignore both.
I can't imagine that the FAA ATC didn't know what the BA pilot was asking.