A contributing factor was an French speaking aircraft was cleared for t/o in french, while there was a runway entry/incursion on an intersection, on the same runway. This aircraft was not aware the conflicting aircraft was cleared for t/o..
Another contributing factor that you omitted is that the Shorts crew did not maintain sterile cockpit. Read the accident report before pointing fingers.
I have submitted 3 MORs at french airfields due to loss of situational awareness caused by ATC issuing critical information in French only. (eg, closure of our 2 diversion airfields, Orly and Beauvais, due to thunderstorm activity!!).
Aren't you kidding? You lose situational awareness because of a foreign language? What kind of a pilot are you? I don't want to ever be in your plane. Besides,
how do you know that critical information was transmitted, if you do not understand French?
I completely agree s_bakmeijer. Although it's definitely good news that Russian ATC will now be in English, I also think that many more flight crews could make some bigger effort in 'looking over the border' and 'thinking outside the box' by at least learning some catch phrases.
Isn't it peculiar that it's mostly the British and American pilots that get all excited about the bad level of English in France/Spain etc even when these pilots themselves don't speak a single word of French or Spanish?
I'm not that fluent in many languages as s_bakmeijer, yet I do try to think outside the box by trying to imagine what it would be like if we had to speak Spanish/French/Russian/Chines over the radio and how much we would struggle...
Here's a classic joke: "how do you call someone who speaks two languages?" Answer, bilingual. "How do you call someone who only speaks one language?" Answer, American/British.
I couldn't agree more! Additionally, a person
only capable of speaking one language is a
monoglot.
You are correct in your observation that it is usually the English speakers that almost act like drama queens by citing safety issues when flying in dual language airspace. This topic is continuously reappearing on pprune with the usual narrow-mind point of view. I have flown in dual-language environments where I did not understand the non-English language and I didn't feel my safety compromised in any way. Ask any other non-English native pilot who has done the same and none will act like those here on pprune. It's usually a favorite French bashing argument.
