The pilot said "smoke in the cockpit" and then gave his flight number. What part of that did the controller not understand.
Really?! First of all, this is not about "European", US, Asian or whatever pilots. Secondly, going by information provided here, assuming (for now) that its correct, the pilot stated "Emergency, smoke in the cockpit, roll trucks, please" and when the controller questioned "Who was that?" the reply was "5912".
Emergency, smoke in the cockpit, roll trucks, please
is not correct, and will never be correct, coming from any pilot, American or European.....
Again, its easy to judge when not being in this crew's situation, regardless of nationality, level of language proficiency etc etc, but no mayday call was made and no (correct) flight number was communicated. Period.
How about "Mayday mayday mayday, ExpressJet 5912 (or whatever their FULL call sign is), we have smoke in the cockpit! Standby!"??