Originally Posted by hec7or
eg. an immediate instruction to prevent an accident or incident, while nice for others to understand, would be better for the crew to which it is addressed to be clear and unambiguous and in the language that both they and the controller understand best.
No hec7or, it wouldn't.
I was involved in a nasty air miss in Spain. For some reason, the approach controller shouted in English at the Spanish aircraft, with a panic in his voice I'll never forget, to make a rapid turn to the right. We were watching the TCAS and became visual with this head-on aircraft at the same time. I was able to start my right turn just before the "BREAK BREAK xxx turn right TURN RIGHT" instruction.
Now, I know a Frenchman will say "but you have TCAS", but that's not the attitude in aviation. Except, clearly, in France (and there were a/c above and below).
I know ICAO says that it's legal to use French. We are just discussing the safest option - something that nearly every other state has come to a different conclusion than the French have. Maybe as soon as the AF arrives in the Cardiff zone, all the other local aircraft should switch to Welsh so the AF doesn't have a clue what's going on. And if someone gets killed, and the report says we should consider not doing that, then we'll just shrug our shoulders and state that ICAO allows us to use the beautiful Welsh language, and the French can just go away and learn Welsh if they want to be safe.
SLF,
Yes. But you can rest assured that the French will not subscribe to such a scheme unless there will be a FRENCH button and all input/output will be in French. There will never be concord(e) with their approach.