How can this be legal?
 

Just a little rant on uncontrolled airports in Spain. Heck, wouldn't be surprised if this happened in controlled airports.

I'm a Spanish student studying for my PPL in Spain. I've never spoken Spanish over the radio in case someone wouldn't understand me and it's generally more comfortable for me.

I've had times where I'd speak English over the radio to report a position and get replies in SPANISH. Take into account that they have no idea I can speak Spanish and yet they do it anyway. I've had people tell me that many Spanish general aviation pilots can't even speak English.

Does it only happen in this country?

I hope things will change the day there's an accident caused by this sort of miscommunication..

Hi Jaair,

As far as I know, Spanish is still on the list of ICAO official languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, French) so it can be used, although all pilots and controllers should possess at least level 4 English if they will be operating in an international environment. In my current Middle Eastern country, the authorities are doing a very good job of trying to lift our English standards and actively discourage the use of anything other than English. Keep persisting with English; it should be the safer option and will help our Spanish colleagues lift their standards, which aren't lauded by folks who use the services there.

Same **&%^%(, different country...
 

It's the same in Canada - did some flying in Quebec and unless you are flying into an international airport you better be able to speak non-english

We are speaking uncontrolled, so towerless, airfields in Spain, aren't we? Then it all depends on the AIP settings for the specific airfield. Although most european countries decided to set prime language to english, this is typically limited to a defined set of frequencies. There was a long discussion last year with the french fighting brits without LP french in their license, but flying to FR only fields.

The way I remember flying to small airfield in Europe I had to look up each and every to find out what languages are provided at the field. If I also remember correctly, with Language Proficiency regulations in EASA land, you have to have the LP entry for the language used at the airfield to be allowed to execute your license rights for landing, unless there is a COM NOOP allowed.

I remember also seeing many airfields with opening hours for different languages - most prominent if there are too few people speaking a specific language. Even further, there is some setting which allows any official language to be set mandatory for a field. A friend once told me they thought of declaring a small airfield in northwest Germany as Saterfriesisch only, which is a very small local minority language and they checked this to be legal.

I flew from Reykjavik (BIRK) in Iceland in the summer and was amazed to find not only all comms in Icelandic but they even use their own Icelandic version of the phonetic alphabet ("Ragnar" not Romeo etc)! Lots of international flights through there.

ICAO Annex 10 CLEARLY states that the language spoken in radiocommunications should be the language spoken in the country. IF in a controlled aerospace an aircraf is unable to speak the local language, English should be used.
As a result, in an uncontrolled environment, Spanish or any other local aircraft in uncontrolled aerospace have the right to speak their own language unless the local CAA legislation tells otherwise.

This has by the way NOTHING to do with the 6 official ICAO languages, that are used to translate official ICAO documents.

Despite ICAO Ann.10 most AIPs I know start with "the standard language used is english" and local language is an exception. I have not checked France and Spain, but guess there is something similar set.

That's how it was and is in Sweden where I started flying too. They use a Swedish alphabet.

Adam
Bertil
Cesar
David
Erik
Fredrik
Gustav

…..etc

100% of local pilots in Lithuania use lithuanian comms and why should they talk english if they never leave their country? But ok ok, it turns into a problem when a foreigner wants to join the circuit and nobody's able to relay them any information. One can only hope that the English-speaking pilot will choose the correct routes and airfields to fly to...

Local language usage
 

The more interesting thing I find about the use of local languages for aviation in different countries, is have they ever been safety assessed?

The English language words/phrases to be used in two-way communication, even the way to say them, are published by ICAO and have been reviewed and if necessary changed after incidents or accidents have occurred.

I wonder has any State ever safety assessed their own local language and/or changed it, if there was doubt as to it's effectiveness, or possibility of confusion?

Have most local language RTF words/phrases come about because of historical usage (military / common speak adoption / etc)? Can some of the Pilots / ATCOs out there that use local language shed any light on this? Is the local language published in a State CAA approved document?

Notwithstanding National pride and history - aviation is about safe and effective communication between two or more people, whether it be on the radio, in the cockpit, or wherever...

RTF - i was taught that RTF stood for Radio Transmission Failure, RT being the abbreviation for talking on the radio.....?????

RCF - Radio Communication Failure

Well, you were talking about "uncontrolled" airports.

This does not happen in controlled airports in Spain and the pilots do speak English fluently.

The rules, as I understand them, are that any aircraft (IFR or VFR) not crossing an international FIR boundary is perfectly entitled to speak the local lingo, whatever it may be. Any aircraft crossing a boundary must speak English. Whether this is used in practice in say South America between 2 Spanish speaking countries, I doubt it

Norway as two official languages for ATC, English and Norwegian. Pilot decides what language shall be used in communication.

My humble guess is that about 99% of all "norwegian pilots" use english as primary language, but might be a bit different on small, privately owned airfields.

All TWR/APP controllers is fluent in both, and for the time being, the ACC as well. (The latter, however, is about to be "English only", mainly because the government/CAA/ANSP would like to open for foreign controllers..)

Sweden is the same as Norway; I believe Denmark is as well.

I've always been a little curious though how that works in practice as I've been told by various pilots that there are plenty of scandis working in the "wrong" country, for example a Swede in Copenhagen. At the same time I've also been in and out of copenhagen a few times and I have heard them speak Danish with helicopters etc. Anyone with insight in how this works in practice? Is for example Danish considered "good enough" to work in Norway or is fluency (I suppose level 6 or level 5) in Norwegian something that is enforced?

In Germany all the upper air is in English the lower is English and German due to VFR pilots who don't need to learn English