On last Friday’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN’s John Vause highlighted one more danger of boarding an international flight in the United States: many pilots don’t know enough English to communicate with control towers. This April, for instance, an Air China flight headed to Kennedy Airport repeatedly failed to understand air traffic control commands both in the air and on the ground. “Nobody seems to speak English here today,” a frustrated controller finally said before Flight 981 stopped on the tarmac.

Air China, of course, declared it was the tower’s fault. “He didn’t use the standard RKO language,” explained Xu Xiukai, an English instructor for the airline. “That’s why the pilot didn’t catch the actual meaning.” (Xu apparently garbled his words during the CNN interview—he probably meant ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization.) Even if Air China is correct in this regard, pilots should know enough English, the language of air traffic communications around the world, to understand overworked controllers.

The problem is not limited to Chinese fliers, of course. Miscommunication occurs with pilots of virtually all nationalities. Yet China’s situation is especially acute. Chinese airlines have approximately 8,600 pilots flying international routes. Only 651 of them have passed the ICAO oral English exam.

It will be next March before all pilots on international routes must pass the ICAO’s test before being allowed to fly. Until then, my advice is to take ground transportation.