How to do this dictation
Listen to the audio recording and complete the task below. You can play the audio as many times as you like. When you are finished, check your work against the answer key and the full transcript.
Before you listen — key vocabulary
These words appear in the recording. Knowing them before you listen will help you catch every word:
| decompression (noun) | A sudden loss of air pressure inside the aircraft. |
| cabin altitude warning (noun phrase) | An alert telling the crew that the air pressure in the cabin has dropped to a dangerous level. |
| emergency descent (noun phrase) | A rapid, controlled descent to a lower altitude where the air is safe to breathe. |
| door seal (noun phrase) | The strip around a door that keeps the cabin airtight. |
| divert (verb) | To change course and land at a different airport from the one originally planned. |
Your dictation task
This is a sentence-reordering task. The nine sentences below are the full transcript, but they are in the wrong order. Listen to the recording and write the correct order (1–9) next to each letter.
A. The flight diverted to Athens, the nearest suitable airport. _____
B. Flight 472, an Airbus A330, was cruising at flight level 350 on a night flight from Dubai to London. _____
C. The aircraft descended to 10,000 feet, where the air is safe to breathe without oxygen. _____
D. The captain declared a Mayday and began an emergency descent. _____
E. The aircraft landed safely about forty minutes later, and no one was seriously hurt. _____
F. About four hours into the flight, the crew heard a loud bang, and the cabin altitude warning sounded. _____
G. Once level at 10,000 feet, the crew assessed the situation and found that a door seal had failed. _____
H. The cabin pressure was falling rapidly, so the pilots immediately put on their oxygen masks. _____
I. The cabin crew checked that all passengers were using their masks. _____
Speaking follow-up
Imagine you are the first officer on Flight 472. After landing in Athens, an investigator asks you to describe what happened from the moment you heard the bang. Give a clear, ordered account of the emergency and the actions you and the captain took.
Record yourself on a phone voice memo so you can play it back and self-review. There’s no single right answer — the goal is to produce a clear, structured response under time pressure.
Level: CEFR B2 / ICAO Level 5
Want to read about a real cabin-oxygen safety issue? See our news article: FAA Orders Airbus A350 Oxygen Clamp Fix.