... tried that when flying in Mexican airspace. The controllors immediately caught my intention and advised me that:
1. they had not enough time
2. national traffic is not required to know the English language
3. they would point out any potential conflicting traffic to me.
(at the end you do not want to p!ss off a controller, esp. if
you are in foreign airspace)
back to the accident @ CDG. French being used on R/T is one of the contributing factors. Here's a summary of the accident report:
PROBABLE CAUSE: The accident was caused:
Firstly, by the LOC controller's erroneous perception of the position of the aircraft, this being reinforced by the context and the working methods, which led him to clear the Shorts to line up,
Secondly, by the inadequacy of systematic verification procedures in ATC which made it impossible for the error to be corrected,
Finally, by the Shorts' crew not dispelling any doubts they had as to the position of the 'number one' aircraft before entering the runway.
Contributory factors include:
Light pollution in the area of runway 27, which made a direct view difficult for the LOC controller.
Difficulty for the LOC controller in accessing radar information: the ASTRE image was difficult to read and the AVISO image not displayed at his control position.
The use of two languages for radio communications, which meant that the Shorts crew were not conscious that the MD 83 was going to take off.
The angle between access taxiway 16 and the runway which made it impossible for the Shorts crew to perform a visual check before entering the runway.
The lack of co-ordination between the SOL and LOC controllers when managing the Shorts, exacerbated by the presence of a third party whose role was not defined.
A feedback system which was recent and still underdeveloped.
due to the insistence of the French to speak their own language at CDG
I am not trying to play down the accident, but a similar accident occured in Italy where a Scandinavian MD-80 crashed into a D-registered Citation. Both were using English R/T, there was bad vis., gnd radar inop etc. I think posting that the accident @ CDG is entirely to blame because of dual languages usage is a bit much ...
