And yet again, after a clearly reasoned post highlighting the inherent dangers of multilingual R/T comms (yes within a controlled environment because that's what the original post was all about for Christ's sake) the response is to cite "language chauvinism" without any reason or substantiating evidence. I give up. It really is pathetic.

Re: CDG accident, for those who claim this event had nothing to do with using different languages, here is an extract of the report, with the recommendations from DGAC.

For my tuppence, I have just got home in time for the footie and routed through France. Whilst every controller spoke excellent English, the local traffic, and subsequent RT, was a mystery to me so my SA was zero! If it was the case that the internationally recognised language of the air was French, by virtue of my chosen profession, I would have to learn French, however; it has been agreed as English. To that end, be professional and speak English. Complain all you wish but if your argument is that you are in my country and should at least speak my language, imagine how many languages I need to learn when I route around the place! That is why there is a chosen and common language of the air. Grow up and be a professional for goodness sakes...

A couple of months ago, crossing Algeria for two hours, virtually all the trafic (ATC and local aircraft) was in french. My F/O (N/Z) started to mumble - and I knew what he was about to express.


So I shot it first : don't blame the French for speaking french ... because those guys all around us are not french ! He didn't know what to answer.

Plastic787 - as you admit in an earlier post, you have never learned a second-language - therefore you have no idea how silly your plan is that pilots and ATC should not be allowed to communicate in their own language in their own country.

This was a mid air collision over Zagreb between a BA Trident in cruise and an Inex-Adria DC9 climbing out of Split. Cause was ATC failure to co-ordinate the DC9's climb so as to maintain separation between both aircraft. As ever it took several steps for holes in cheese to line up including communication errors between mid and upper sector controllers, staff not all at their post, premature withdrawal of a 'squawk' code and a late check in on upper sector by the DC9

The language used initially was English and with a potential opportunity for Trident crew to pick up an SA prompt when the Adria flight checked as climbing towards their level and with same estimate over Zagreb VOR.

The controller only lapsed into Serbo-Croat, either by instinct or for emphasis, when finally realising potential disaster was imminent within seconds.


The accident report is here:

Rigger
 

perhaps you could expand on this comment as I understand that in France it is mandatory for communications between ground stations and French registered aircraft to be carried out in French.

This is filed I believe as a difference from ICAO and therefore it would be perfectly professional, for a French Controller to speak in French under such circumstances.

Annoying though it is, it is a requirement in law.

c7or, particularly if you live in France, speak reasonable conversational French, but little chance of passing the "aviation" French test. Hence I now gilds in UK

If the official language in aviation would be Spanish we would have much less misunderstanding because the language is more clear, especially for numbers. Much less level busts, lost comms, say agains, etc. English really isn't very suitable and therefore we have so many rules and extras in the RT.

So I say, all aviation RT should be in Spanish.

We are professional pilots, we fly in different countries and the best way for everyone to understand each other, to have good SA is for everyone to speak a common language. That language is English, it could have been any other. That's why we have to have at least ICAO level 4 english. It has nothing to do with national pride. It is what was agree by all ICAO nations.

I'm Portuguese and in Portuguese airspace you hardly ever hear us speak in Portuguese, we speak in English, why don't the spanish and french do it too.

Unfortunately the French will never do this. You need to understand the French phyche and what being "French" means. Being French means using the French language - it is what being French means. It's not living there, it's not having a French father.....it's speaking French.

The French will protect their language until the bitter end. Fighting it is a losing battle.

If the Americans spoke French then we wouldn't be having this conversation as all international (verbal) intercourse would be in French

Would english only speaking pilots boycott european airports until they speak english only be an acceptable interim solution ?

Meanwhile, level 6 spaniards, french or italian pilots may provide the workforce for channel or pond crossing :E

Now more seriously, i wonder if/when spanish will be in use (not excluding english being used simulteanouly) at some airports in US, since spanish may become the most spoken language there during this century or the next.

Btw i have no opposition to speak english only in main french airports and upper airspace, but i think we ´re more efficient on aprons or for any complex situation (safety or security) if we are allowed to use our mother tongue. It´s true btw that we ain ´t best european english speaker, but our english is still much better than most americans/brits ´ french so we shouldn ´t be so often mocked by our western cousins (scandinavians or dutch are more entitled to mock us). I am convinced english only on UAS/approach/tower at Cdg will happen within the next 10/20 years. Other main cities could take much longer, maybe 30 years until previous generations retire).

"Grow up and be a professional for goodness sakes..." , " Chauvinism" , " arrogance " etc..
Pheww!
Looks (again) like the Mirror or the Sun headlines.:hmm:

Just get a handheld radio and sit next to Malaga (or any other big Spanish) airport for a little while, you might be surprised.

For the record - I speak fluent Spanish, but what's going on there is pure madness.

The biggest issue with french on the r/t is that it seems impossible to say something in a short message. Or maybe its just the french desire to have a discussion about everything.
In any case the english transmissions in CDG are a lot shorter and more to the point.

BTW, american pilots at CDG are horrible! How about you guys pay attention and get some airport charts out!!! Instead of winding yourselves up about french r/t.
Your own version of r/t is far away from what icao thinks is acceptable anyway.

And british pilots should also try to leave some various horrible accents at home when talking over the airwaves. And realize that their long apologetic/ thank you so very much r/t stories are just annoying, blocking the frequency and that CAP whatever does not apply outside the UK.

KLM pilots need to stop putting THE before their callsign, and transavia (or is it trenseefiaa) should try less hard to talk with a fery heafy dutsch akksent. Everybody knows your dutch and for some reason no other dutch pilots do this.

German pilots need to put the callsign in the right place.

See you can come up with something about every language. Maybe we should all just speak chinese, at least the china southern could then fly direct routings instead of being vectored across every western country. (tongue in cheek)

I had a serious scare at an airport with parallel runways when ATC sent a French-speaking aircraft across in front of me (like a few hundred metres in front) to join the LH runway while I was on final for the RH. He'd spoken to me in English the whole time, to the other chap in French the whole time.

The ATCO may have had situational awareness, but I don't think the Frenchman or I did.

One more liar
 

Nobody , even the french NTSB ( which have no ATC specialist in their teams) was able to assume that the SH330 crew was on the Local frequency when T/O clearance was given to the MD80..now why this so called professional captain who was told to line up after the departing in front of him line up after a clearing landing aircraft (when the co-pilot was expressing his right understanding of the situation) ? The main cause of this accident is the arrogance of those flying drivers who don't care about ATC again their airline profit !!! Just explain why the captain suicide some month later ??
English is no more a language , it's a tool. And it's the tool of liberalism used by the american to dominate the world. You should not be proud of that !

A7700, whatever you're smoking seems to give you great bouts of paranoia and hatred of pilots.

You're entitled to you opinions, like everyone else, but this topic is not about liberalism, stupid pilots who don't care about ATC to make profit for their airline (where did that come from??), or American domination of the world. English is not a tool to exterminate you or your neighbours.

I don't know why English was elected as the common language for ICAO and commercial aviation. The only thing I can say, is that as a non-native, English has been the easiest language to learn ever. It's grammar is simpler than French, Italian, German. The average Joe can use about 200 different words in the English language and live a normal life. The French use about 1800 words and there seems never enough to express themselves.

IMHO, arguing that a single language may reduce SA at the local level is a whole lot of bull. The aviation industry agreed on other common values in the past, like the Nautical Mile, knot, foot, etc. Imagine what Europe would be like if we had to change speed-altitude-distance and (why not) time units because one feels more comfortable with the units close to home. Most would agree this would be non sense.

Pilots and other aviation professionals had to LEARN the units used in the industry. You don't get confused with your car's speed indicator in km/h even when you used NM and knots all day at work. You're not gonna ask ATC to use km/h just because you are used to that in your car since you were 18 years old.

Well, in my view, the language issue is the same. Local languages should be used only in a limited way for uncontrolled traffic, and flying clubs. Once anyone takes the training to a professional level (including ATC), just learn and use English like you learn other units specific to aviation.

As always, there are 2 sides to this story but something that always annoys me in Spain is the lack of SA, and bad English.
While the French/English thing is not optimum, agreed, the French have outstanding SA and are able to talk good English even when they have an accent.
In Spain, the centre controllers are barely OK, but most approach controllers are just horrible. Recently for decent planning:
"XXX Can we expect the full procedure or a 6 mile final ?"
"Station calling ?"
Repeated more slowly ...
"Hello, calling for weather ?"
"Disregard"

:confused:

As a French speaker, I'm going to tootle around next Saturday in my little pond-hopper and speak French around the circuit, as after all it is an ICAO language. Let us see how much chaos that causes, and how much trouble it gets me in.

Utterly ludicrous stance by the French.