Irish Steve
10th Jun 2006, 16:30
I'm probably living dangerously, but I'm going to ask the question, and see what the replies are like
Has any organisation linked with aviation done any serious research on the implications for flight safety of multinational and multilingual crews?
The reason I ask is that I flew recently on a (european) short haul flight that had a total crew compliment of 6, and I would put money on it that there were at least 5 different nationalities represented. The flight deck is included in this, and it was very clear from the PA's that there was a very different level of ability with English on the flight deck.
That's not the first time, or likely to be the last time, but, and maybe it's my age, I'm becoming slightly uncomfortable when thinking about some of the implications of this increasingly common strategy.
My concern would be this. If an incident occurs, the likely response is that the people dealing with it will think in their "natural" language. If that is not the "natural" language of the other crew members, and the thoughts are expressed, there is a very real liklihood that the remainder of the crew may be unable to understand what is being said. To compound that problem, if the crew members are then only reasonably proficient in "aviation" english, which while functional, is a VERY limited subset of the english language, if there is not a "common" language, how are they going to be able to adequately communicate if dealing with a complex problem that is outside of the limited scope of "aviation" english.
I've listened to several safety announcements recently, as well as flight deck PA's, and the uncomfortable conclusion I've come to is that in certain circumstances, the probable success rate of multi crew co-operation is likely to be very low, not because the crew don't want to co-operate, but because they can't adequately communicate in a common language to the degree necessary to resolve the problem in a timely and safe manner. Even dealing with the basic announcements has caused some of the people responsible more than a little difficulty. In some cases, the pre flight is now done from tape or VCR, which in some ways makes this even more relevant, in that it removes the crew member from having to communicate even the basic stuff.
OK, this issue has always been there when travelling on a "foreign" carrier, but in past times, at least all of the crew were likely to speak the same language, so there was a good chance they could at least communicate in depth and rapidly in an emergency. If the crew don't have a common language, how do they then deal with complex problems about which they are not even sure of the reason, let alone how to resolve it, and then they have to try and communicate that concern adequately to the other crew members.
I'm not sure if this is a serious issue or not, but I do wonder, given the standards of English I've heard in recent flights.
So, has it been researched, and if it has, what conclusions did they reach?
Has any organisation linked with aviation done any serious research on the implications for flight safety of multinational and multilingual crews?
The reason I ask is that I flew recently on a (european) short haul flight that had a total crew compliment of 6, and I would put money on it that there were at least 5 different nationalities represented. The flight deck is included in this, and it was very clear from the PA's that there was a very different level of ability with English on the flight deck.
That's not the first time, or likely to be the last time, but, and maybe it's my age, I'm becoming slightly uncomfortable when thinking about some of the implications of this increasingly common strategy.
My concern would be this. If an incident occurs, the likely response is that the people dealing with it will think in their "natural" language. If that is not the "natural" language of the other crew members, and the thoughts are expressed, there is a very real liklihood that the remainder of the crew may be unable to understand what is being said. To compound that problem, if the crew members are then only reasonably proficient in "aviation" english, which while functional, is a VERY limited subset of the english language, if there is not a "common" language, how are they going to be able to adequately communicate if dealing with a complex problem that is outside of the limited scope of "aviation" english.
I've listened to several safety announcements recently, as well as flight deck PA's, and the uncomfortable conclusion I've come to is that in certain circumstances, the probable success rate of multi crew co-operation is likely to be very low, not because the crew don't want to co-operate, but because they can't adequately communicate in a common language to the degree necessary to resolve the problem in a timely and safe manner. Even dealing with the basic announcements has caused some of the people responsible more than a little difficulty. In some cases, the pre flight is now done from tape or VCR, which in some ways makes this even more relevant, in that it removes the crew member from having to communicate even the basic stuff.
OK, this issue has always been there when travelling on a "foreign" carrier, but in past times, at least all of the crew were likely to speak the same language, so there was a good chance they could at least communicate in depth and rapidly in an emergency. If the crew don't have a common language, how do they then deal with complex problems about which they are not even sure of the reason, let alone how to resolve it, and then they have to try and communicate that concern adequately to the other crew members.
I'm not sure if this is a serious issue or not, but I do wonder, given the standards of English I've heard in recent flights.
So, has it been researched, and if it has, what conclusions did they reach?