Pilots’ Request for a Toilet Break Turns Into Emergency Alert After Hilarious Misunderstanding With Air Traffic Control

I'm shocked some people are saying she didn't communicate it clearly.

• ATC repeatedly tried to guess things and made the situation worse instead of asking for an explanation or to spell the word/problem. "Are you declaring an emergency?", "is your autopilot inoperative?", "do you have a medical problem?", "we suspect the aircraft has no pilot".
• "pilots are inoperative" is not how anyone would say it
• who wouldn't declare an emergency in that case?
• what non-pilot would be so calm if they were flying the plane?

She even explains why a toilet is used (so passengers can relieve themselves).

It seems to me that the first controller planted the idea that she said they had no pilots, and everyone else just took that as a fact.

This is some of the worst ATC I have ever seen. Not sure how these pilots could have been clearer about the situation.

https://pilotinstitute.com/acars-explained/

Modern aircraft have a system called ACARS that sends text messages to ground systems.

Text-based communication reduces the risk of misheard calls, especially if the frequency is jam-packed.

Might have been a good option in this case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACARS

I thought maybe the pilot had an upset stomach and had warned others near the lavatory, "You all need to get out of here because I’m fixin’ to blow it up."

To try to attempt to avoid confusion, the international language of air traffic control is regularly conducted in English, but as can be seen in this incident, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people speaking English as a second or even third language might not get confused from time to time.

I think the situation was dire enough here that maybe it's worth trying, as a fallback interchange language, a common ancestor of the Portuguese airline and the French air traffic control --- Latin. Maybe that'd clear things up.