Turkish Airlines is to check the English abilities of its pilots following disclosures in Politiken last month that many of the airline’s pilots are a safety risk because their English abilities are not good enough.

A spokeswoman for Turkish Airlines says that all pilots must document over the next two months that they are able to live up to international requirements on the use and understanding of English.

“Turkish Airlines has decided that some 2,200 cockpit employees are to undergo the language exam known as Level 4. The exams must have been taken before April 1,” writes Spokeswoman Selin Elcin in an e-mail to Politiken. Turkish Airlines has not wanted to be interviewed on the issue.

In 2010, Turkish Airlines flew some 200,000 passengers to and from Copenhagen and is one of the fastest growing airlines in Europe.

In a series of articles before Christmas, however, Politiken documented that the language abilities of the airline’s pilots were so bad that many serious mistakes were made. The problem was documented, among other ways, through the airline’s own safety reports.

In an internal memorandum to all of the airline’s pilots on November 23, 2011 airline management said: “Compared with other companies using European air space, we are, unfortunately, not where we should be or want to be”.

The memo referred to an analysis of airlines that had used European air space in the Third Quarter of 2011.

According to the memo, inspectors had found a sharp increase in cases where procedures ordered by air traffic control and restrictions on fight levels had not been followed.

In October 2011 the company warned its pilots that there were problems with communication in Great Britain in particular.

“Because of the many mistakes which have recently been experienced in communication with air traffic control in British airports, it has been noted that Turkish Airlines’ reliability has fallen under the expected level,” the safety bulletin said.

At the same time, 13 foreign pilots who had all worked or still worked for Turkish Airlines, said that their Turkish colleagues English abilities were often lacking to the degree that they did not fully understand instructions from air traffic controllers, written manuals or simple conversations in the cockpit.

“I sat next to a Turkish pilot. He was largely unable to speak English and was unable to communicate with me. When an alarm went off, he didn’t understand what the alarm was about,” said one of the pilots of an experience in a simulator.

“If the alarm, for example, says that the oil pressure is low in one of the engines you have to take a check list that explains what to do in such a situation. He didn’t understand that I asked him to get the check list and he didn’t understand what was in the check list. Nonetheless he was not failed,” he added.

The exam that the Turkish pilots are to take will, among other issues, focus on their ability to understand the different accents that they may experience in international airspace.

“The air vocabulary that is used in our Level 4 exam measures the participant’s knowledge of English, accent, ability to understand different accents and pronunciation and the ability to communicate fluently in English with a functioning grammar and vocabulary,” Turkish Airlines Spokeswoman Selin Elcin writes.

Elcin is unwilling to explain why the decision has now been taken to send pilots to an exam, although the Turkish newspaper Radikal has linked the move to criticism in Politiken.

Although Elcin has declined to comment on the report, Radikal says there will be consequences if a pilot’s language abilities are not good enough. Those who do not live up to requirements by April 1 will probably be grounded until they have improved.

700 Turkish Airlines pilots, including 200 foreigners, have already passed the test.

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