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I am looking at pilot-to-tower communication and I'm coming up empty: can someone give me a brief set of dialog based on this non-correct communication?

This is for a piece of fiction (happening in the United States). I'm looking for three or four short sentences between the airplane and tower when the plane's pilot is seeing a large, impossible looking object at some distance and is asking the tower (?) if they "see it as well"?

Plane (747 Major Air-line): Tower are you picking up anything [ location ~70 north of the airport ]?

Tower: No, Flight[number], what are you seeing?

Plane: "Some kind of atmospheric phenomena?" [inaudible]

Tower: Say again?

Plane: There appears to be some kind of extremely large object at 35000 feet. It appears to be a dark colored pyramid. I can't tell if it's real or--

--Tower receives priority information from FAA (or more appropriate government office)--

Tower: We're not seeing-- wait. Please emergency divert [ to?? ]. We have a serious condition and need to clear all air corridors (?).

Plane: "It's heading directly at us, Tower. We are diverting." ---END

If this is inappropriate for this forum, I'm sorry--I did look up a lot of pilot-to-tower jargon and I couldn't find even basic stuff that works for it. If someone can give me a quick run through of what jargon might be used, I'd be very thankful.

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    $\begingroup$ If I'm understanding right, you're writing a piece of fiction and you're asking to make this (inherently unrealistic) dialogue sound more realistic? Phraseology will heavily depend on whether the interaction is happening in the United States or some country that is not the United States, and it will depend to a lesser extent on which specific the non-USA country it is. $\endgroup$
    – randomhead
    Commented Sep 24 at 5:49
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    $\begingroup$ This may well be better suited to Worldbuilding. $\endgroup$
    – Jamiec ♦
    Commented Sep 24 at 7:19
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    $\begingroup$ I'm no expert on any of this, but I think some of the concern here is the use of "Tower" - "Tower" means an airport, and an airport won't be controlling space 70 miles away. Air Traffic Control in general does, but (again, not an expert), while a pilot at 35,000 feet can see well past 70 miles in clear skies, I doubt they would be able to reasonably judge distances beyond a few miles - i.e., they'd know there is something in a particular direction that is either big and far away or HUGE and not as far away. $\endgroup$
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Sep 24 at 15:36
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    $\begingroup$ If the plane is at cruising altitude, it would not communicate with tower, but a center. Initial contact would be for example: "Denver Center, Delta 123". ATC would then reply "Delta 123 go ahead". Then the exchange could go as you described, up until the point where the ATC commands the plane to turn, which would be something like this: "Delta 123 turn immediately heading 180!" (or suitable compass heading for your scenario). Delta would reply "heading 180 for Delta 123" Center might give extra info after Delta reads back the turn instruction. $\endgroup$
    – Jpe61
    Commented Sep 24 at 17:06
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    $\begingroup$ The suitable radio callsign for the center in your scenarion location can be found here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_control_center $\endgroup$
    – Jpe61
    Commented Sep 24 at 17:08

2 Answers 2

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There was some discussion in the comments about primary radar. In high-altitude airspace all aircraft are required to have a transponder which transmits an active reply when pinged by ATC radar systems, and controllers who are working that kind of airspace exclusively are not required to display primary-only radar returns on their scopes. So the "additional information" the controller get could be them turning on primaries and seeing something there.

Note however that primary radar (at least the kind used by ATC) only shows a target's 2D position over the ground. It does not indicate how high the target is. Military primary-only radar might be designed to also scan for vertical information but an airliner at cruise would not be talking to a military controller.

With that said, and remembering that this is a very unrealistic scenario, here is a slightly more realistic exchange:

Pilot: Center, you got any traffic for Delta 123? Five miles or so?
ATC: Delta 123, negative, no traffic in your vicinity... I can check primaries.
Pilot: Yeah Center, I'm seeing something right in front of us, dark pyramid or something, same altitude.
ATC: Traffic alert, Delta 123, twelve o'clock, three miles, altitude unknown. Advise you turn right heading one-eight-zero immediately.
Pilot: Right one-eight-zero, Delta 123.

This scenario wouldn't necessarily cause the pilot to request a diversion, but if for some reason you want ATC to initiate the diversion it might be something like this:

ATC: Delta 123 we need to get all traffic down immediately. You're cleared to the Denver airport via direct, descend and maintain flight level two-three-zero.

Your scenario is rather similar to this scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind which is lauded as being very accurate to ATC phraseology, equipment, and working environment. It's a little bit dated now but it still sounds extremely realistic. Note how the Ares pilot initiated evasive maneuvers on their own rather than waiting for an ATC clearance, once they determined that there was a danger to the aircraft.

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If the plane is at cruising altitude, it would not communicate with tower, but a center. Initial contact would be for example:

"Denver Center, Delta 123".

ATC would then reply:

"Delta 123 go ahead".

Then the exchange could proceed as you described, since unusual communication such as the one you described does not have a standard phraseology to follow, up until the point where the ATC commands the plane to turn, which would be something like this:

"Delta 123 turn immediately heading one eight zero!" (or suitable compass heading for your scenario).

ATC might stress the urgency of the command by continuing:

"I Say again Turn immediately heading one eight zero! (note that headings, flight levels and most numbers in general are read out in single digit numbers)

Delta would reply:

"heading 180 for Delta 123" Center might give extra info after Delta reads back the turn instruction.

The suitable radio callsign for the center in your scenarion location can be found here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_control_center

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  • $\begingroup$ A small point: Why would ATC command a turn to 180°, they don't see anything on their screen (which should be a SSR, so without transponder nothing will be visible). In case of accident after the turn., ATC unmotivated request may be criticized. I believe the crew should ask a clearance for a turn if they think this is what to do. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Sep 25 at 17:25
  • $\begingroup$ I assumed they received information necessitating the turn to some direction, since the question reads: Tower receives priority information from FAA (or more appropriate government office) $\endgroup$
    – Jpe61
    Commented Sep 25 at 17:39
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    $\begingroup$ I stand corrected, makes perfect sense. $\endgroup$
    – mins
    Commented Sep 25 at 17:42

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