Spanish/French/Italian Controllers
 

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.

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

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:

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

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

:confused:

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

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

:D

Flybywyre - listen out before posting!!

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

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

regards

;)

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

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

Ciao
Henry

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

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!

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. ;)

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?

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

... 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:

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!

This got a really good thrashing in this thread

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