As I remember, this thread was about learning to fly in the Montreal area for an English speaking student. You will be able to learn to fly in our area in your native language without any problems as English and French are used in official pilot/controller communications.
I don't want to comment on some "politically" motivated postings but to say that ignorance is at the basis of racism.
As for the Zagreb accident that did cost the lives of too many people, their ATC system was ultimately responsable for those deaths. The language issue was anecdoctical as during the last few seconds of the flight, the controller stopped the use of English with the Yougoslavian crew to warn them of the danger in his mother tongue, which wasn't the same as the pilots. If I remember well, he was using Croate when the pilots were Albanese, but I could be mistaken about the language used.
And finally, for all those who fall for statistics, how many accidents were not caused by languages? Some are talking about the concept that the use of the same language in pilot/controller communication helps the pilots maintaining the "air picture" but numerous studies have proven that this is not the case, and that's why Canada decided, back in 1976 or so, to use both French and English in certain areas. A while back, as I was attending a workshop where pilots and controllers were discussing this exact issue, the morning paper had a story of a B737 that flatened a Metroliner at the LAX airport. While the controller cleared the Metroliner to position on the active, he then, just a few seconds later, cleared the B737 to land on that same runway. Both flights used English, so did the controller, and lives were lost. And for those who are saying that it is more dangerous at small airports were there are more unilingual pilots, don't forget that not everyone has a radio, so you might not be aware of everyone using the airport anyway...
Hope that sheds a new light on the issue. As for the original question, again, don't be scared to fly in our region, nowadays we even have Chinese student pilots who come to St-Hubert airport, in the Montreal area, to learn how to fly in an English speaking environment...
Last edited by drapo; 22nd Apr 2008 at 15:29.