Air France pilots make headline news
 

Sure, management had to act...

Some egos are going to be bruised here, but it's a little late to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Perhaps post Gonesse / Toronto would have been a more timely intervention ?
Denial is only effective for so long.

You should see the commotion on french television. Pilots are up the wall.

If AF were a non European outfit we'd be saying what a dangerous airline and let's not fly with them They do have a bit of recent form.
Get your act together mes amis! A spot of standardisation and flight deck discipline wouldn't go amiss. We know you can do it. Please.
I am disappointed and astonished.

I think AF and French ATC should be told to speak english. This may seem a petty thing, but I think it is indicative of a much wider and deeper malaise. i.e the "we're special so the rules don't apply to us" attitude.
Speaking french is an obvious manefestation of that attitude - however it seems there are many others - all of which add up to make AF the least safe airline in the whole of JAR land - and indeed much less safe than a number of '3rd world' airlines.
However nothing will change.
Oh well, c'est la vie.

Speaking your native tongue and the language you are most familiar with in your native country reduces safety? That is a novel concept. Recall the terrible American Airlines accident in Cali....The Tower controller was questioning the approach that the AAL flight and the responses that the pilots were saying, but there was a language barrier outside of the standard phraseology to verbalize those questions. In the Cali case, English was the lowest common denominator....in the case of Air France operations inside France, it is not.

Your claim that this and unspecified other items "make AF the least safe airline in the whole of JAR land - and indeed much less safe than a number of '3rd world' airlines" Care to back up that claim with objective hard facts?

No not a novel concept, because when r/t is in "local", the rest of us using standard English are out of the loop, situational awareness is reduced, especially in LVP's. Therefore saftey margins are reduced, no brainer really.

Cheers Silvertop

I'm with silvertop on that one too. Well said.

Colombian airspace sucks, a company I worked for had an RA overflying Colombia.

Fine example, both aircraft at the same altitude flying an airway, heading towards each other. If both aircraft had pilots speaking the same language a big WTF would come to mind when you hear the other aircraft report.

I believe this was also a factor in the 737 lost over Brasil.

Agreed no brainer.....

Bonjour toi même :ok:

Don't know who you are but like a lot your statements about a dying company which was MINE for 33 years.

Toronto was the beginning of the end...

Makes me really sad with my professional carreer for that old prestigious company.

mermoz92

Forever ever a professional Air Line Pilot.

PS: ils n'en piquent toujours pas l'ombre de la queue d'une en anglais, with their OPS manuals (re)written in french, and absolutely none Airbus and/or Boeing FCTM (of course in english like for the rest of the world) distributed to AF pilots...

Had a TCAS RA with an AF aircraft climbing through our level over deepest Africa in the middle of the night. They werent on 126.9 and were communicating in French to ATC. They didnt respond to their RA causing a strengthen RA for us. When asked why, the reason was "they could see us". This was post Uberlingen.

If they could see us, why on earth continue climbing through an occupied level?

Pfff...so easy....AF 447 is not due to the language barrier...isn't it?

Feathered, I can only assume you've never operated into or out of a French airport.

I'm sure someone can provide the link to a well documented fatal accident at Paris CDG not too many years ago where a taxiing aircraft infringed a runway and was hit by a landing (or was it taking off?) aircraft. The PRIMARY reason for the accident was ATC speaking French to the French (the landing) aircraft and the pilot of the taxiing aircraft not understanding what they were saying to each other.

Parlez away in your local language to your collective hearts' content at regional airports where everyone speaks that language. However, the use of French at international airports in France and French dependencies reduces situational awareness for all non French speakers to a way beyond dangerous degree. It's a given that people have died because of it, and the French refusal to do away with its use can only be explained by one word - arrogance.

It's possible our children's children might be in a similar situation in the not too distant future with the use of Mandarin. But in the meantime, it's time the French accepted that fact that Bonaparte's days of glorie are long gone and in aviation at least, the French language has been supplanted by the language of the people they've never quite forgiven for bailing them out of two world wars - Anglais.

Edited to add: Hotel Mode, I see you incident was at night. I've had exactly that happen to me - AF 747 climbing through my level about 3NM away, (thankfully in day VMC), and if they were listening on any of 126.9, 128.95 and 121.5, not caring to reply to our repeated WTF? calls.

They won't need to speak to the controllers, this is why we operate fans 1/a. Eventually the radio will be an emergency backup. Just think of how quickly your children can send a text message.

Exactly.......

and the text message will be translated automatically: just like on my I Phone:cool:

Ok to try to speak english in FRANCE...but...I'm flying in a french company...a small one...We are doing Post and charters...Guess Who? :) so... we can observe alldays a "no" compassion from ATC when they hear the foreign accent...We are flying altogether, then I don't understand why people fight about the language barrier...safety is first !!
fighting about the language domination is actually the main purpose...let's be honest...today there are some OACI languages, french and english languages are among them...
French interior flights are more important than foreign flights with (?) 95% of french airports...
I understand the problem for non-french pilots in CDG, because they come 2 or 3 times a month in France...( good instruction case, isn't it? ;)...)...but....do you know BDX, LYS, MPL, SXB ? I ask that to non-european pilots... ( I suppose european pilots come often to be accustomed with "french-english accent" of ATC, and the 2-hundreds words vocabulary used in the two-way communication...)
Maybe...a solution -in my opinion, crashes due to barrier language are non-existent... - may be to impose english language in CDG only...

I'm sorry for my poor english...but I did my best... ;)

Air-sol...french pilot
I'd like to get the right english translation of my post...thanks !!

One look at their hull loss record will speak for itself...:rolleyes:

Care to post the hull loss record comparison that you are speaking of so that we can all see?

Why would you assume that? I learned to fly operating out of (and into) French airports.

I understand that you feel more comfortable/safer when flying and talking in your native tongue. It's hardly arrogance at all--we are in complete agreement. I feel the same way.

Ignoring the ignorant "forgiven" comment, the future primary comm will likely be computer/text based rather than voice anyway. Consider the 'situational awareness' implications.