Airbus Within 6ft of the Ground nearly 1 mile Short of Runway

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by Youmightsaythat

I suspect 99% of the replies on here have missed the overriding law in aviation.

Its referred to as 'tombstone safety'. Nothing changes until there are deaths and it costs more in insurance payouts than to fix the problem.

How much would it cost, apart from the dint in nationalistic pride, for it to be compulsory for English to be used at one of the busiest airports in Europe. Let's remember standard RT phraseology does not mean having to be fluent. Indeed if you said 'QNH' to a typical Englishman you might as well be talking Mandarin. How hard can it be?

Harder than you might think, in my view.

Various suggestions have been made about how the initial incorrect value could or should have been caught, irrespective of how that incorrect value came to be communicated by ATC. They are way outside my area of expertise, but language use isn't, and my conviction, informed by professional and personal experience, is that requiring people who share a native language to communicate in a non-native language is a recipe for poor communication and potentially just as great a problem as any due to the use of multiple languages.

[safetypee]

There is considerable focus on the human aspects of this incident, but consider the technologies supposed to catch human error; why didn't they work.

[Youmightsaythat]

I think a few flights into or out of CDG when it is busy and thunderstorms are about would concentrate your mind on if the use of French and English is a serious problem.

[deltahotel]

Eutychus. I think all the aviators on here see where you’re coming from. However….. consider my own airline which is by no means unique. Until recently with 20 odd nationalities on the flight deck operating in pretty much every country in Europe plus a few others every day. Much as I’d love to have level 4 or better in multiple languages, it’s not going to happen. Picture our Italian/Spanish flight deck into Cdg speaking French, or (just as bad) Scandi/German going to Spanish speaking Madrid or indeed any European flight deck going to native speaking China.

I guess in specific cases (probably regional airports) operating national airline only, native language could work but otherwise I can’t see how anything other than a common language could be safe. Fortunately for linguistically lazy Brits that language happens to be English.

[MPN11]

Language Barriers

I recall many many years ago, as a Mil Controller on the rather 'interesting' Clacton Sector, handling a 4-ship of Italian F-104s heading for home. Only the lead seemed to speak English, and he thus translated everything I said into Italian for the benefit of the rest of the formation. Mercifully neither I, nor the frequency, were particularly busy.

[FlightDetent]

As much as I think there's bigger galaxy-class cruisers to fry on this one compared to the dual language at CDG (which bites different ways)

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Did the French not file a variation? Instead of spelling the Kweu-enh-aich they verbalise Quebec-November-Hotel?

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by deltahotel

Eutychus. I think all the aviators on here see where you’re coming from. However….. consider my own airline which is by no means unique. Until recently with 20 odd nationalities on the flight deck operating in pretty much every country in Europe plus a few others every day. Much as I’d love to have level 4 or better in multiple languages, it’s not going to happen. Picture our Italian/Spanish flight deck into Cdg speaking French, or (just as bad) Scandi/German going to Spanish speaking Madrid or indeed any European flight deck going to native speaking China.

I guess in specific cases (probably regional airports) operating national airline only, native language could work but otherwise I can’t see how anything other than a common language could be safe. Fortunately for linguistically lazy Brits that language happens to be English.

Thanks for your response. I think you slightly misunderstand where I'm coming from.
I have absolutely no problem with there being a standard aviation language and there are plenty of arguments in favour of it being English.
I would also expect ATC at any international airport (as well as pilots!) to have a sufficient command of it.
The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how good the respective parties' English may be, it's never going to be as fluid as them using a shared native language if they do share one.
And it's with that in mind that I'm disputing the notion that making CDG English-speaking only would make it a safer airport considering the number of parties talking to each other whose mutually shared native language is French.

Anecdote: Calling my internet provider helpline, I once happened on a tech support guy here in France whose native language was audibly English. Both their French and mine were excellent (my basis for this claim on my part is that I make a living out of being fluent in both), but I can't tell you how frustrating it was trying to troubleshoot the problem in what was not our non-native language because his company policy required it.

[Maninthebar]

Many many posts referencing language difficulties but.....

QNH is a very simple datum

What prevents HAL being responsible for this?

[Youmightsaythat]

Anecdote: Calling my internet provider helpline, I once happened on a tech support guy here in France whose native language was audibly English. Both their French and mine were excellent (my basis for this claim on my part is that I make a living out of being fluent in both), but I can't tell you how frustrating it was trying to troubleshoot the problem in what was not our non-native language because his company policy required it.

Give me an altitude, a speed, a heading a QNH and a runway...Thats wall we need.

[jumpseater]

Originally Posted by Eutychus

Seeing a problem is not the same thing as identifying an appropriate solution, and may not be the same thing as seeing the predominant problem.

In the case you relate above the first question in my SLF mind is the grounds on which ATC cleared an aircraft for takeoff when they had been informed of FOD on the runway.
..

SLF noted :-)
There are no grounds for clearing an aircraft for take off with FOD/suspected FOD on a runway. Procedure should be to check the report even if it incurs delays to arrival or departures.

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by jumpseater

SLF noted :-)
There are no grounds for clearing an aircraft for take off with FOD/suspected FOD on a runway. Procedure should be to check the report even if it incurs delays to arrival or departures.

That was kind of my point. The root problem in the FOD incident referred to is not which language was being used but why suspected FOD didn't lead to a runway check. In my SLF view over-fixation on the language issue here may lead to other more serious problems being overlooked.

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by Youmightsaythat

Give me an altitude, a speed, a heading a QNH and a runway...Thats wall we need.

Isn't that what precisely the aircraft in the incident in your original post got, in English? (Or at least thought it got?). How would *mandating* the use of English have prevented this incident?

[First_Principal]

Originally Posted by Eutychus

...how frustrating it was trying to troubleshoot the problem in what was not our non-native language because his company policy required it.

? I would have thought that conversing in 'not your non-native language' would have improved things, but then again if you used a lot of double-negatives I can see how it would get frustrating !

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by First_Principal

? I would have thought that conversing in 'not your non-native language' would have improved things, but then again if you used a lot of double-negatives I can see how it would get frustrating !

But look how easy it is to clear up the misunderstanding between native speakers

[ATC Watcher]

Always amazed to see how the language issue is alawys coming back here to the French , and CDG as if it was the only country and only airport in the world using dual language.
This acident is not a language issue. Actually you could turn this argument around, if English had been mandated for all aircrfaft in CDG that day , the QNH passed to the AF would most likely been 1011 as well., so in fact decreasing significantly the overall saftey by increasing the risk to other aircraft. .
I always was and still am all for a single global language in the R/T , but I also know that there is absolutely zero chance of having this pass any ICAO meeting., even more today than in 1944 with nationalsim on the rise everywhere. Language is cultural and part of a State Sovereingty and a change is never going to happen , Same as having the US adopting the metric system ( which is the international ICAO standard btw) . So we all have learned to live with these and mitigate the shortcomings.

[Compton3fox]

Originally Posted by Youmightsaythat

You are correct the 'official; report did not highlight this as being a serious problem. Now I wonder why that might be? Can I suggest you look at the FACTS of the crash. When you have, get back to me and tell me that this wasn't a major factor.

The TWR controller "did not notice" the circled '16' annotation on the strip. Just over two minutes after the transfer to listen out on TWR, with the 737 having meanwhile landed and passed in front of the SD330 waiting on taxiway 16 before clearing the runway, TWR cleared the MD83 (in French) for take-off. Five seconds after this, the SD330 was instructed by TWR (in English) to "line up runway 27 and wait, number 2". On receipt of this clearance, its crew then began to taxi onto the runway "whilst looking for the Number 1"

It doesn't seem the comms in French and English was a major factor. The SD330 knew there was an A/C on the runway as they were looking for it. It seems the root cause was clearing the A/C onto the runway into the path of another A/C already rolling as the TWR controller thought it was behind the MD. No2 implies there is an A/C to depart before you. Of course, hearing "Clear for Take-off" in English just before you are cleared to Line up and wait No2, may have provoked a different reaction but it equally may have made no difference. To say the language difference was the cause, I don't think is backed up by the facts.

[Youmightsaythat]

Originally Posted by Compton3fox

The TWR controller "did not notice" the circled '16' annotation on the strip. Just over two minutes after the transfer to listen out on TWR, with the 737 having meanwhile landed and passed in front of the SD330 waiting on taxiway 16 before clearing the runway, TWR cleared the MD83 (in French) for take-off. Five seconds after this, the SD330 was instructed by TWR (in English) to "line up runway 27 and wait, number 2". On receipt of this clearance, its crew then began to taxi onto the runway "whilst looking for the Number 1"

It doesn't seem the comms in French and English was a major factor. The SD330 knew there was an A/C on the runway as they were looking for it. It seems the root cause was clearing the A/C onto the runway into the path of another A/C already rolling as the TWR controller thought it was behind the MD. No2 implies there is an A/C to depart before you. Of course, hearing "Clear for Take-off" in English just before you are cleared to Line up and wait No2, may have provoked a different reaction but it equally may have made no difference. To say the language difference was the cause, I don't think is backed up by the facts.

So he would have lined up if he had just heard an aircraft that had not yet passed him was cleared to take off?

[Oldaircrew]

Originally Posted by Eutychus

Isn't that what precisely the aircraft in the incident in your original post got, in English? (Or at least thought it got?). How would *mandating* the use of English have prevented this incident?

I’m sure that if everyone on the frequency is given 1001 and you’re given 1011, you’ll be suspicious and query it. Furthermore, if the ATC is constantly giving out 1001, the odds on them giving you 1011, will be greatly reduced.

[fdr]

Originally Posted by WideScreen

fdr I agree with your writing, though my issue is, that this "tool" still is the (admittedly much better) primary driver for the flight path.

What we are missing is the "independent and automated verification" of what flight path the flight crew creates/follows with the tools they have available (or should have available in the ideal situation). The verifier is the one that saves the lives, when the flight crew screws up, for whatever reason.

I get that, but say trying to fly in Paris, Bhutan, or around Mongolia, Kunming, South Korea in winter, and the error is easily greater than the 10mb in this case. Had a crew do an autoland once before they got to minima... Using PA below about FL180 is a technical backwardness. The system isn't going to change anytime soon, but in the interim, the next panel upgrade I'm doing to my jets includes space for an iPad as the EFB, and for general "SA" benefits. It already interfaces with the APFD and C145 nav systems. Geometric altitude is where there be dragons, that's the info I find nice to have on hand.

On a GPS based 3d source, if the aiming point is 3 degrees below the horizon, that is where you are going if you are flying your 3 degree path.

[derjodel]

Originally Posted by deltahotel

Fortunately for linguistically lazy Brits that language happens to be English.

I speak a few languages, and English is by far the simplest one. Seriously, the most complicated thing in English is spelling, which is irrelevant for phraseology. It's a very good choice for an international language.