After “right…”, “why?” is the most frequent word said by an examiner when applying the ANAC test. The examiner always wants to give an opportunity for the candidate to speak a little longer, to develop the topic and provide the examiner with a long enough sample to be able to assess his or her English proficiency.
Pilots just love using the expression “due to” to explain why something happened, or the cause of some problem or failure. But is it always appropriate? Let’s see.
Basically, “due to” must be followed by a noun, nbot a complete sentence, with subject, verb and complement.
“We had to land as soon as possible due to an engine fire”, and NOT
“We had to land as soon as possible due to the engine was on fire”
“Because”, on the other hand, must be followed by a sentence with a subject and a verb, as seen in the example below:
“We shut down engine number one because it was vibrating”, and NOT
“We shut down engine number one because vibration”.
What about “because of”? Well, it follows the same rule as “due to”, so it must be followed by a noun.
“We couldn’t take off because of the rain”, and NOT
“We couldn’t take off because of it was raining”
Why does it work like this? Just because!
Carolina d'Avila English 