Originally Posted by
Eutychus
Harder than you might think, in my view.
Various suggestions have been made about how the initial incorrect value could or should have been caught, irrespective of how that incorrect value came to be communicated by ATC. They are way outside my area of expertise, but language use isn't, and my conviction, informed by professional and personal experience, is that requiring people who share a native language to communicate in a non-native language is a recipe for poor communication and potentially just as great a problem as any due to the use of multiple languages.
I would disagree. Yes, english is a tertiary language for me, but it is the primary language in a professional context. Since we do not use „free“ language in ATC communications but rather a very specific and prescribed phraseology, it is not normal english, or normal french, spanish or german for that matter. Quite honestly, using my native language in my home country for ATC would reduce my mental capacity, situational awareness and speed of communication. Simply because i always have to think about the correct phraseology which i haven’t used in over 25 years (and i have been based in my home country nearly all that time).
And of course there is the pesky issue of not being able to get full situational awareness and a correct mental model incase of multiple language use on frequency. Had that demonstrated once in MAD of all places, an Iberia (spanish communication) and us (english) under the control of the same ground controller got a conflicting clearance that could have resulted in some bent metal at the next intersection. It was easily solved by our colleagues in the Iberia by switching to english and querying that clearance prompting the ATCO to reply in english as well assuring that both crews and the controller had the same mental model. In the air conflicts are not always as easy to see and to solve, where dual language use is common.
“French ATC“ and „Spanish ATC“ are the number one threats during the TEM discussion in the briefing in those places.