FlightDetent, thank you.
Originally Posted by
Busbuoy
I would strongly suggest that if the CDG controllers used only English language phraseology at all times this incident would not have happened.
It seems just as likely to me that if only English had been used for all communications, the mistaken value could have been broadcast to all aircraft. Sure, that might have increased the chances of it being caught, but at the cost of multiplying the potential for similiar incidents with similarly inattentive crew.
If they weren't continually flipping between the standard language and French they would probably not have made the error to begin with.
Again, I'm not sure. Remember the mistaken value was given in the non-native language. The issue here from a linguistic point of view isn't what that language is, it's that it's the ATC's
non-native language. In my experience numbers are one of the hardest things to get right in a non-native language.
The fact that the majority of these other transmissions were in a language foreign to the incident crew reduced their opportunity to catch the error.
That is true, but as FlightDetent has pointed out, there appear to be a whole load of other ways of catching this error that deserve attention before deciding it's all the fault of dual language use. I'm sure crew picking up information from ATC communications with other aircraft is helpful to my SLF safety, but I sincerely hope it's not the
first layer of safety...
As to the reasons for the Gallic refusal to adhere to the language stipulated as standard by ICAO
See my quote from the Wikipedia article on Aviation English
here. One of the apparent misconceptions of some native English speakers on this thread is that speaking English, whether as a native speaker or not, suffices for RC to be intelligible. According to that page, it can actually be a
disadvantage when used by native speakers, especially in non-standard and/or emergency situations.
Just be thankful the standard language isn't Esperanto.
The suggestion reveals another Western-centric blind spot. Esperanto isn't "neutral"; its use would favour Romance and Indo-European language speakers considerably. Somebody upthread suggested Klingon; the related Wikipedia article states that
a design principle of the Klingon language was dissimilarity to existing natural languages in general, and English in particular, so that might make it a better candidate. Whether the more equal unfamiliarity of all pilots with this proposed universal aviation language would enhance safety overall is another question...