Spanish/French/Italian Controllers

[Sean Dell]

Please stop shouting at Pilots who don't speak your language! I am sick to the back teeth of being told to 'listen out before transmitting' when you insist on speaking in your own non-ICAO tongue. How do I know when you have finished talking to your fellow countrymen? In fact the more it happens the more inclined I am to transmit at will. STOP DOING IT - It's dangerous and extremely annoying.

Rant over

S.D.

[Scott Voigt]

Sean;

Hmmmm, no matter the language, usually by listening to the freq for a short time when you check in and ensuring that no one is talking works well <G>... We find it happening no matter the language...

regards

Scott

[Sean Dell]

Scott- Whilst I fully advocate listening out before speaking - ie don't just blindly push the PTT - I fail to understand how I can possibly know that Mr Spanish Air Trafic Controller and his Pilot Chum - who have been rabbitting on for two minutes in speed Spanish - have finished their conversation! Unless they stick the word 'OUT' on the end.

And while I'm here, don't think that we don't have means of finding out that us non linguists are being left at the back of the departure queue. I now regularly get one of the Cabin Attendants to come and listen on the P3 headset to tell us what is going on!!

:oh:

[Gisajob]

Hear Hear Sean Dell,

In 1975/6 the Zagreb mid-air collision was partly caused by the ATCO talking in Serbo-Croatian. The British pilot could not, therefore, follow the language and get a mental picture of the air situation.

When will ICAO clamp down on this dangerous practice of letting non-English R/T carry on ?

Gisajob

[Sean Dell]

And not to mention the incursion incident at CDG which resulted in the tragic death of the British Co-Pilot.

:confused:

[Flybywyre]

Sean Dell............

Could you repeat your post in Spanish /French/ Italian...........

:D

[Sean Dell]

Flybywyre - listen out before posting!!

[Flybywyre]

Sean Dell your on the wrong frequency, recall your previous :p

[catchup]

"All traffic enter the hold, except Spanish /French/ Italian."

regards

;)

[Odlix]

As much as I agree that English should be used by EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, Spanish and French are ICAO official languages.

[Henry VIII]

STOP DOING IT - It's dangerous and extremely annoying.

I totally agree with you all.
BUT, as italian pilot, at the same time I have a request to the english speaking controllers, expecially in USA :

Please, stop talking in local or strange slang. We are not your pub friends or cousins. We DO NOT understand your slang. Revert to ICAO standard.
IF you take care about SAFETY.

Very often your beheaviour is

dangerous and extremely annoying

as like as flying in Spain/France/Italy not speaking local language.

Ciao
Henry

[Turn It Off]

Maybe I should start speaking in Welsh to even the scores up a bit, am sure the foreign crews would appreciate that!

[Sean Dell]

Henry - Couldn't agree more with you - If English speakers stuck to standard RT phraseology and yes that does mean Americans too - then we would all be working in a safer environment! If we can all speak English then why not use it? It's not asking for much is it? If we can all fly an ILS or a right handed holding pattern and conform to the rules of the air - then why not speak the same lingo for the sake of Situational Awareness. Or are we all too proud!

PS I'm more than happy to try and converse in Spanish/French/Italian in the bar over a beer or two - just not in the air where my neck is on the line!

[Gary Lager]

I have found spending a few minutes in the books and learning the french/spanish/italian for words like 'level', 'heading', 'climb' and 'descend' and numbers from 1 to 10 has paid enormous dividends wrt situational awareness down-route.

It really is worth doing, Sean et al, while you wait for hell to freeze over and non-english languages to be removed from the RT. ;)

[Sean Dell]

Gary whilst I admire your efforts in learning these words - We shouldn't have to do it!! If I can keep to standard ICAO phraseology and not resort to colloquiallisms (sp?) and so can most of our collegues, then why should we suffer other so called professional pilots/ATCOs 'pride'?

Where do you draw the line about which rules should be followed and which shouldn't. I would of thought that in this day and age of the Glass Cookpit and the potential for loss of situational awareness from over reliance on automatics, any little bit of extra help - such as fully understanding lengthy RT exchanges (delivered at speed) from other ac might be benefitial....

Just a thought...

Oh and where are all the Spanish/French/Italian ATCOs to defend their practices? It's all a bit quiet isn't it?

[126,7]

Oh and where are all the Spanish/French/Italian ATCOs to defend their practices? It's all a bit quiet isn't it?


They dont understand whats going on here and left for the Spanish / French / Italian forums!:}

[salzkorn]

... or they may just be tired of that Spanish/ French/ Italian bashing...
As far as I am concerned, I am in favor of English on the R/T, but I don't like that contempt and that despising tone some of you use in your posts here... so I won't even bother to try to find any argument, be it pro or anti-"English language"... :hmm:

[Sean Dell]

Excellent contribution Salzkorn - well reasoned! Come on - this is a safety issue - nothing more. If you agree with the principal then why not encourage your countrymen to comply rather than burying your head in the sand. Don't be so precious!

[Jerricho]

This got a really good thrashing in this thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103933&highlight=bilingual)

[Sean Dell]

Thanks Jerricho - good to keep the pressure on before another accident then?

[commencenowdescend]

Could not agree with you more Sean on this. I am a Greek ATCO now working in the UK. The same thing happened in Greece between Atcos and Greek crews and probably still does. It took a flight on a jumb seat and a spare headset some years ago for me to realise how stupid, dangerous and unsafe this practise is! It should be outlawed! In my 21 years in ATC I have witnessed more than one incidents attributed to non standard R/T. No one is going to loose touch with their mother tongue or get a hurt national pride by sticking to English and Standard R/T during work! Play safe!:cool:

[Sean Dell]

Well said commencenowdescend - if only more controllers took the time to come for a jump seat flight then they would realise as you say. I would thoroughly advocate a visit to the world of non English ATC too - by pilots - then we can press home the message.

[yellowplane]

just curious.. from this reply you'll probably gather where it's come from but language is a problem I know.. what about transmissions on two frequencies for the same thing?

UHF over VHF at the same time is my problem... any comments?

[Widger]

Je pense que c'est un fil très intéressant. Tandis que je peux comprendre les susceptibilités des Espagnols qui ont une réclamation égale pour parler ce qui est une langue largement parlée, les Français n'ont aucune excuse.


:ok: :bored: :bored:

[Scott Voigt]

Part of the problem in the US is that our pilots don't have to ever worry about another language (well unless flying in New York <G>), and they never are forced to use standard phraseology here. They talk as they would on a phone quite often and their phraseology is getting worse.

As many of you know, we have our "own" phraseology for many things and they are posted exceptions to the ICAO phraseology. We are pretty happy with it too <G>. But due to working with MANY pilots who use no sort of phraseology we have issues with it ourselves from time to time. I think that for the most part though controllers here pretty much stick to "our" published phraseology (we are monitored all the time and get written up for poor phraseology.), but another problem is again the local names for places on the airport or reporting points etc... It IS an issue, but the US isn't the only one with the problem. We just have a very large pilot population to deal with and a very large problem to try to fix.

I have been trying to get some of this rectified in the Air Traffic Procedures Advisory Committee which I sit on, but the FAA is VERY reluctant to address the pilot phraseology issue, and the pilot groups are also reluctant to put anything to rule that will effect thier pilot groups... I will keep trying though.

regards

Scott

[av8boy]

HenryIII

Please, stop talking in local or strange slang. We are not your pub friends or cousins. We DO NOT understand your slang. Revert to ICAO standard.

Could you provide examples please? Believe it or not, I'm not looking for an argument here. If this is what we're doing, it needs to change.

(At least) please tell me this isn't happening on the west coast...

Dave

[Sean Dell]

Well said Scott - it would be nice if some of your European collegues were as professional and took their Nationalistic heads off for one moment.

Keep up the good work.

[Eva San]

Je pense que c'est un fil très intéressant. Tandis que je peux comprendre les susceptibilités des Espagnols qui ont une réclamation égale pour parler ce qui est une langue largement parlée, les Français n'ont aucune excuse.

Bel effort que d'utiliser la langue de Molière pour de pareilles inepties. De quelle sorte d'argument s'agit-il ? Avez vous la moindre idée de combien de personnes parlent chinois dans le monde ? Peut être devrait on alors commencer à utiliser le mandarin pour les radiocommunications... Le français est jusqu'à preuve du contraire une langue Oaci, un point c'est tout ! Voici une preuve supplémentaire de la suffisance légendaire de certains anglais !

:mad: :mad:

But as someone said above, some of us might be a little tired of this Spanish/Italian/French bashing so I'll not express myself (in english) on that subject, especially as you may not understand my unperfect english...

[Sean Dell]

Eva San - what has the popularity of Mandarin got to do with the argument? It's about safety not quoting Moliere etc. Grow up and take part in the debate sensibly.

Pouvez-vous fournir un argument bien raisonné ? (William Shakespeare)

No - I didn't think so!

[Plumaveloz]

I am an spanish ATC. I use my mother tongue with spanish pilots because it gives me more confidence they will understand what I want to say.
Whenever both, spanish and english speaking pilots are involved, I try to use english, so everyone understands all the communications. But usually, the first english communications to an spanish pilot get lost and I have to say again over and over. Other times, I can assure pilots are not listening to other communications, even when they are affected second hand by them.
Besides that, I would agree that everyone should use only one languaje at all times... What about chinese? It is also an official ICAO language...
Regards,

Á.

[Sean Dell]

Plumaveloz, thanks for joining the debate and being so honest. I wish your collegues in MAD and BCN attemted to speak English when there are English speaking a/c on frequency! It's nice to know what other a/c are being told to do - keeps everyone in the loop. Would you prefer it that when we are in the terminal area and we don't understand what is being said to other a/c (ie. we are losing our situational awareness) we should ask for the last transmission to be repeated in English? Would this be acceptable? I'm happy to do it provided I don't get shouted down again.

ps I would like to think that if the international language of the air (and I'm not talking about the vagaries of ICAO) was Mandarin - then I would make damn sure I understood it and so did everyone else - and we stuck to using it.

Stay safe...

[Plumaveloz]

Besides my (I think..) beautifull language, I assume english is the key.
The main problem doesn´t come from professional IFR pilots, rather than from VFR newbies, with whom we have to deal everyday.
ESARR5 takes care of this, and all of us, the sooner, the better, will have to show up with good english languages skills, that will also be tested from time to time.
But till that time, I would like to point out that a whole lot of your security depends upon a controller ability to communicate. I think it is better that the controller finds himself more secure talking to spanish pilots on our own language, rather that spending time on repeating instructions.
Plus, many airport workers monitor our frequencies, in order to know, for instance, which plane is cleared to land, so they can move the buses to pick up the passengers, or select a park place. Not to talk about emergency situations, where seconds of translation may cause bigger problems. Forcing all this people to understand english fluently may take our ATS providers months of teaching.
I know foreign planes are very common in Spain, and they should be used to this, but relieving this not so well instructed task force from the foreign languages problems allows them I little rest.
Anyway, why don´t you also try to learn some spanish phraseology?. At the end, there are not so many words.
Take care too.

Á.

[FlyingRob]

Well... a VFR newbie... I guess I fit into that group, with just below 100 hours of total flying time in Spain... and a controller-to-be too! Phew, can't get much lower than that, can I? ;)

As you say, Plumaveloz, English is the key to improve situational awareness, and ESARR5 will eventually take care of this... hopefully! But some positive attitude is needed as well from every individual... I have even heard pilots reporting in Catalan (a language used in certain areas of Spain) when other english and german pilots (who might understand some spanish, but Catalan is beyond question) where sharing the frequency... and the airspace:uhoh: !! So it was a unicom frequency, but in a small crowded area... Now tell me about safety! I don't feel comfortable in these situations, and tend to make cross reports for the foreign pilots, which they are more than happy to receive.

The ability to comunicate in english (which is what you need in the air) can't rely on some multiple-choice tests about standard phraseology, as they use to get a CPL (with things just slowly changing, mainly as requirements to apply for a job at one of the big ones). I would also say that VFR pilots should be familiar with standard VFR phraseology in english... And self confident enough to use it if the situation arises!

On the controller's side, I think that the method used nowadays in Spain to asses the knowledge and fluency in English is quite good (written tests are only used in the first stages of the selection process).

Happy landings!

Rob

PD: Nice to see you're around here too, A.!!

[redsnail]

If other countries wish to speak in their ICAO language then I (English speaker) will just have to listen out even more carefully and learn a few phrases.

What is irritating is when the ATCO and the pilot decide to have a long conversation. I can't follow that and more importantly, can't get a call in. I guess this is just as irritating for non English speaking pilots when they're in UK/Aus/USA etc airspace.

Now what I find really irritating is abbreviated calls.
Recently on departure from a Spanish airport, my instructions were "aircraft c/s 190"

190 what? Heading? Flight Level?

Another thing that would certainly help understanding the RT would be for every one to slow down their delivery just a bit. Rapid fire heavily accented English is pretty hard to understand.

A big thank you to all the ATCOs who deliver their calls clearly and phonetically spell out the interesting waypoints. :)

[Lon More]

Although I've been retired for more than a year now it was my impression that "situational awareness" was decreasing anyhow - at least in the upper airspace, so it is to some extent immaterial in which language ATC instructions are given. The trend toward larger sectors,with horizontal splits, higher traffic flows, direct routings, position reports a thing of the past, RVSM, and the gradual introduction of Data Links have all contributed. This has been partly offset by the introduction of TCAS, but this is still not a total solution.

I can remember in the 1970's the Canadian controllers'action, Ënglish is the language of International aviation"when Quebec tried to enforce bi-linguallity (i.e. everybody must speak French) throughout Canada (this was to have extended to all flight manuals being bi-lingual, imagine carrying two brain bags). In Belgium the same practice existed, although there are 3 official languages there, French and English being allowed on the R/T until about 1974. For a while I had to do this in schoolboy French, and a number of Walloons insisted on this right until the very end.

There were (are?) discrete frequencies in come countries, e.g. Germany, where the native language could be used for VFR flights. Not the best idea when one controller was working more than one freq. and I remember being told in English, to line-up at Caen when a French speaker was on short final (OK not neccessarilly 100% due to the use of two languages) but as Redsnail pointed out learning a few words, climb, descend, turn, in a number of languages may save your bacon one day. And if an Oz-mate can do it anyone can :rolleyes:. Also when wx allows there is still no substitute for the Mk. 1 eyeball.

(Please excuse the ramblings of an OAP, however not quite senile yet)

Lon More, here before Pontius was a Pilot or Mortus a Rigger

[Eva San]

Eva San - what has the popularity of Mandarin got to do with the argument? It's about safety not quoting Moliere etc. Grow up and take part in the debate sensibly.

Pouvez-vous fournir un argument bien raisonné ? (William Shakespeare)

No - I didn't think so!

I partly agree that the popularity of Mandarin has nothing to do with your debate. But that was exactly the point of my answer to Widger...
First I'm not quoting Molière ( "la langue de Molière" is a common expression to say french language), second I'm just saying that the popularity of French as a language has nothing to do with the argument ( which was Widger's childish way of underlining the so-called Gallic Pride of the frenchs). It's only a matter of being an Icao language or not ...

So, sorry but I don't need to grow up !

And now, if everybody here agrees that there should be one and only one aviation language for safety reasons, then I say that it should be Chinese, because it's the most spoken language in the world ! And that's a sensible argument...:D

[RPMcMurphy]

Chinese isn't the most spoken language in aviation (yet...)
In order to avoid all this confrontationalist sabre-rattling and unpleasantness, why don't we all learn another language and use that? Maybe one of the minority languages from some little known island... or maybe Clanger.....;)
People die when non standard phraseology or more than one language are in use. Let's pick one, (any one, even French!) learn it, use it and avoid any more paint-scratching.
And that's coming from someone works at the british airport that is furthest away from France....:O

[Spitoon]

The business of languages and ICAO is often misunderstood and there are some interesting vatiations on the theme in this thread.

For the record, this is what ICAO says on the subject of language to be used in voice RTF communications (ref Annex 10, Vol 2, paragraph 5.2.1)5.2.1 General
5.2.1.1 PANS.— When a controller or pilot communicates via voice, the response should be via voice. Except as provided by 8.2.12.1, when a controller or pilot communicates via CPDLC, the response should be via CPDLC.
5.2.1.2 Language to be used
5.2.1.2.1 The air-ground radiotelephony communications shall be conducted in the language normally used by the station on the ground or in the English language.
Note 1.— The language normally used by the station on the ground may not necessarily be the language of the State in which it is located. A common language may be agreed upon regionally as a requirement for stations on the ground in that region.
Note 2.— The level of language proficiency required for aeronautical radiotelephony communications is specified in the Appendix to Annex 1.
5.2.1.2.2 The English language shall be available, on request from any aircraft station, at all stations on the ground serving designated airports and routes used by international air services.
5.2.1.2.3 The languages available at a given station on the ground shall form part of the Aeronautical Information Publications and other published aeronautical information concerning such facilities.
5.2.1.3 Word spelling in radiotelephony. When proper names, service abbreviations and words of which the spelling is doubtful are spelled out in radiotelephony the alphabet in Figure 5-1 shall be used.There are plans to change this but, for the moment, those are the International rules.

I know it doesn't help the thread much but I hope it can do away with some of the misunderstandings about what ICAO says - in particular, the business about Chinese etc. being an official language. It may be for ICAO documents but it ain't for RT!

[redsnail]

A different perspective. When operating in Paris airspace yesterday a G reg bizjet was asked what his IAS is. He replied with a load of waffle. "Oh it can be 250, 280, whatever you want it to be". He was asked again what his IAS is. Once again, he replied with the similar waffle as above. It was pretty apparent that the French controller doesn't speak English but he didn't want a load of waffle back, he wanted a clear concise ICAO type answer. He didn't get it.

RT discipline isn't just for other nationalities...

[PPRuNe Radar]

Here is some standard English phraseology for use by Paris controllers on occasions such as those described by Reddo.

'G Bizjet, route to XYZ to take up the hold. Delay not determined'

That soon sorts any jokers out :ok: :E

[Scott Voigt]

We get that a LOT here too... XXX345 say speed... XXX345 - what do you want? Me - I want you to tell me your SPEED! The questions don't get easier <G>...

regards

Scott

[EFP058]

But usually, the first english communications to an spanish pilot get lost and I have to say again over and over.
Why is that though? Isnt´t that something that could be taken care off with a bit of goodwill and training? Take Germany for example, where you can depart from a german airport in a german-registered aircraft and with the entire crew being german, fly in german airspace all the time, land at another german airport, talk to native german controllers during the entire flight, and yet chances are you will not have heard a single german word on the frequency.

Why is that possible here, but not elsewhere? I´m not trying to pick a fight or display a "holier-than-thou" attitude, I´m just trying to understand what exactly the problem is.

[Screwballs]

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the
following: Lufthansa (in German):

"Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."



Couldn't help it! :\

[DFC]

Whenever this debate about the safety of some stations not using the English Language comes round again, there is always the old comment that at times the local language is used to put locals ahead in the Que and that the inability to overhear conversations reduced situational awareness.

Lon has hit on a very important point - in years to come much of the ATC/Aircraft communication will be via datalink. There will be no listening in on other aircraft getting clearances or shortcuts that you don't get.

Would the people who complain about using a language other than English be of the opinion that datalink should not be used?

After all it will have the same effect on situational awareness won't it?

The future language of aviation are lots of 1s and 0s and the box will print it out on the flight deck in whatever language you want!

Of course, just briefly touched upon and lost in the mist is the fact that in the UK and the US, the airways traffic shares the same airspace with aircraft who are not capable of communication on the appropriate VHF frequencies.......but does that affect situational awareness...........or are we only talking about awareness of que jumpers?

regards,

DFC

[Level headed]

I was once giving a RIS to a German PPL, who decided to fly around the UK with his son on holiday. With no instrument rating and a poor met forecast from the back of a newspaper, he inadvertantly became IMC and began to get iced up. All of a sudden his confident ICAO standard language dived faster into his native tongue than a Stuka pilot! Fortunately for him and his brown stained pants he was tuned into luckiest frequency in UK. As I speak fluent German, I understood every word of transmissions. After about 20 minutes of reassuring him and gentle instructions, I managed to get him down on an SRA totally auf deutsch! Just as I went into auto-gable, the supervisor gave me one piece of advice before continuing with the approach- if you fv*k this up you're toast! Thankfully the jerry made it safely onto the piano keys. I wonder who would have done the tape transcript if it went pear-shaped!

[Eva San]

the supervisor gave me one piece of advice before continuing with the approach- if you fv*k this up you're toast!


It's always good to know that you've got unconditionnal support from the management...:mad: :mad: :}

[Scott Voigt]

DFC;

I've found at least in the enroute environment, that a lot of the situational awareness is percieved and not reality. When I asked the crews questions about what they were hearing, they really didn't know what was going on. Of course, you could tell by the questions that they were asking me of what the controller was doing. It goes even further when I bring the pilots into the radar simulator and let them have a go of it. They quickly learn why we are doing what we are doing <G>....

regards

Scott

[saintex2002]

...Sean you said :

" PS I'm more than happy to try and converse in Spanish/French/Italian in the bar over a beer or two - just not in the air where my neck is on the line! "

...Sean, continue de converser et d'improuver ton Spanish/French/Italian au bar autour d'une bière ou deux ...mais une vraie bitter pas une de ces bières européennes qui commencent à vous envahir.... ;) voire une Guiness...mais pas cold comme maintenant, ...comme les anciennes ... quand c'étaient les vraies...avant d'etre globalisés comme partout around the world... ;)
...And your neck will be saved... ( Confucious 1221/1442 )... ;)