Spain sees the light, France next ?
 

Prohiben utilizar el español en las comunicaciones aeronáuticas en España



Sorry for "Google Translate", but, reading this, it seems the light is only a faint glimmer of hope, still a few hurdles to pass.




The Spanish Air Safety Agency (EASA) is intended to prohibit by law the use of Spanish in communications between aircraft and towers and air traffic control centers in Spain and implement English as the operating language.

Given this, the main and pilot associations Spanish air traffic controllers, among which are the Bar Pilots, the Spanish pilots' union (SEPLA) Airlines and the Trade Union of Air Traffic Controllers (USCA), have expressed rejection of this future law on the grounds that reduces operational safety.

In this sense, the management believes that the pilot of inability to speak Spanish "can reduce situational awareness" of the crews and drivers, resulting in less safety.

Since Sepla recognize "convenience" to use English even consider that "should be used only in those situations where operational has involved a foreign aircraft that does not know the language," as recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization ( ICAO).

For this reason, the two groups will be affected by the plan have sent a letter to the Director General of Civil Aviation, Angel Luis Arias, and the director of the (EASA), Isabel Maestre, considering that no "should be implemented so generally in all situations. "

Also complain that there is evidence of conducting a risk management analysis or recommendation thereon by the Study and Analysis of Incident Notifications Air Traffic (CEANITA).

Different employers have to be explained within the expert committees, composed of members of the signatory organizations where the needs that must be implemented in the Spanish airspace in relation to security are analyzed, "as countries come environment of our country. "

Meanwhile, the aviation authorities have requested the support of the various Spanish airline to introduce the English-only, before the change in the rules for this measure is backed by law.

They'll probably go on strike now! :uhoh:

If this is implemented it will be done so kicking and screaming. Operating into the likes of BCN and MAD with no one listening out and everyone talking over everybody else would be comical if it wasn't so frustrating. Situational Awareness is largely guesswork, however I doubt much, if any, consideration is given to it by Spanish operators who religiously keep to their mother tongue. Their airports, their airspace, their rules seems to be the general attitude.

There is ZERO chance this would even be considered in France.

I have some sympathy for those who want to keep the ability to speak Spanish: ATC comms are one thing, but if you have a an unusual emergency, or maybe a potential terrorist incident, the last thing you want is to be discussing it in a foreign language.

If that's the case then nobody is going to argue if you revert to your own language but for everyday communication it should be English.

I suspect France will never change neither will Russia or China!

I think we accept far too much incompatibility in aviation eg metres and feet!:ok:

Good job it's not standard to use Spanish or I would never have been able to fly!

May i remind you that french is the official aeronautic language.
So all pilots and ATC should be speaking french.


So it's normal that it won't apply in France.

Flight Safety
 

For Flight Safety purposes, English should be the ONLY approved language for ANY comm, in ALL countries worldwide.


Flight Safety should be the ONLY concern in this matter.

Speaking of Greek, I have a colleague, who is ex-Helleniki Aeroporia and by his own admission between all the training he went to in the US and all the time he spent here otherwise, his own English is by now much better than his Greek.

But seriously,


Here in Türkiye, it's also a problem. However, ATC do their very best to speak English and as it takes forever to communicate something in Turkish, due to the lack of technical wording for that language, nearly all Turkish pilots are happy to use English too.


I find, that where a non standard request is needed, it's often quicker to ask my F/o to ask in Turkish and translate the reply to me.


It works O.K. Typing this on a Turkish keyboard is, however, a nightmare!

French for Airbus flight manuals..... Recall some light hearted discussions around here of French language aircraft flight manuals.....:}

It was considered in France for CDG airport with planned implementation. Can you believe that a separatist provincial government in Quebec was lobbying and successful in stopping it.

Two Brits died in a ground collision between and Shorts 360 and an MD-80 some time later with language as part of the cause.

Dream on.
 

Fat chance that this long overdue safety initiative will ever get traction!

Dream on, whatever next? The Yanks using correct ICAO R/T phraseology, discipline and order within Spanish ATC, cheap fuel in Italy, ramp agents in Brazil that you can trust, CAKOK in Beijing?

My understanding is that it is considered unsafe for a transmission to be translated into english from the local language by the person transmitting, then translated back into the mother tongue from english by the person receiving, which could give rise to misinterpretation of instructions or clearances, particularly clearances.

I don't have a problem with this as for example, I would prefer the traffic I see on TCAS to know to which level he/she has been correctly cleared without any confusion, instead of everyone else "on freq" hearing about a level bust in perfect english.

Not ideal, but on balance I prefer the status quo.

And therein lies the nub of the problem. English-native speakers always shout that all communication should be in English, without ever having made the effort to learn a second-language themselves. If it is mandatory that all aeronautical communication be in English, that would kill off most GA in non-English speaking countries - as outside English-speaking countries most PPLs don't speak much English. Why should a French PPL be obliged to learn to speak English in order to fly around his own country?

My view on this is simple - in controlled airspace both local language and English should be acceptable. Outside controlled airspace only local language should be acceptable - and if you can't speak the local language don't go into uncontrolled airspace!

The problems that I have seen arising in France are due to pilots flying around in uncontrolled airspace using English - thereby not being understood by local pilots.

Trim Stab that is completely besides the point. Yes it is a happy coincidence that the language of aviation is English and that has fortunately led to monolingual people such as myself being able to have a foothold in the industry but there needs to be standardisation. The rights of a native of any one particular country to be able to fly around his country speaking just their native language are not sacrosanct and are quite frankly irrelevant.

The cold hard fact is that multiple languages on an R/T frequency significantly degrades situational awareness for those not fluent in the language concerned. This has DIRECTLY caused incidents and been responsible for loss of lives and continues to have the potential to do so. How you can overlook this is beyond belief. It's small minded and petty to regard it as a laziness issue when in fact it is a critical safety issue irrelevant to what languages people studied at school.

I am not "overlooking" this issue. I am a native English speaker, but have made a lot of effort to learn French to a bilingual level (I have ICAO level 6) and also German, Spanish and Italian to approximately ICAO level 4 standard. When flying in uncontrolled airspace I always use local language - or else I don't venture into uncontrolled airspace.

I find it arrogant beyond belief that many English-only speakers expect every aviator around the world to learn English - just so that English-speaking pilots can blunder around in their uncontrolled airspace. Do you really expect (for example) every swiss glider pilot - many of whom rarely if ever venture out of their own local valley - to learn English just so that you can fly into their valley?

And therein lies the point; you seem to assume that all the people with level 4 or above English are "fluent", and we know this is far from the case. So you are saying that the SA of native English speakers is more important than that of people who speak any other language. Good luck with that argument!

Flight Safety
 

As I posted before; The ONLY argument in this matter should be FLight Safety.

But what do you do?
When during an International meeting between heads of states, EVERYBODY gives their speech in English, and ONLY the president of FRANCE uses "son francais". That was the most arogant ( or incompetent ) show ever seen on TV.

And the very same thing happened (with a different president of France) just a few days ago during the WW1 celebrations in Normandy.

How hard-headed can one be? ?

I love France, it is a nice place to live in, but on some issues? ? They have to wake up and let go.

To improve air traffic situational awareness for everybody in the air and on the ground, only a single language should be alowed for ALL comms.

This should have been mandatory from day 1 of international aviation.

Ps: I speak 4; Nederlands, Frans, Duits en Engels.
(Dutch, Francais, German, and English. )

BizJetJock now you are just twisting my words in order to make an argument, which is ridiculous. I do expect that anyone wanting to fly should learn English BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE RULES. Yes it makes it fortunate for me but that is a happy accident because I just so happen to come from an English speaking country. It would be the same with any other language chosen. The basic argument is the same for as just pointed out, it is a flight safety issue.

Trim Stab, good for you for learning a few more languages, I am genuinely envious of you and wish I could have done it myself. But don't attempt to relate that to the aviation world because the need for one universal language stems from a need for standardisation and therefore safety. It does not and should not respect the desire of individual nationalities to communicate in their native language for their personal comfort.

Wouldn't it be nice
 

If the UK CAA recommended to the Home Office that UK citizens should not travel by Air France due to reduced safety levels caused by their pilots not speaking English on the R/T.

Never ending debate.

As some posters have already mentioned, and Vilters apparently fails to understand, is that pilots talking to ATC in their native language will have a lower probability of misunderstanding - this increases flight safety.

On the other hand, and obviously, those who do not understand the local language will lose situational awareness - this decreases flight safety.

So where does the balance between this increase and decrease in flight safety end up? Positive or negative? No one can pretend to know for sure, as it depends on the situations.

In my opinion, in controlled airspace the use of local language is beneficial (unless the local English proficiency level is excellent) while in uncontrolled airspace, local pilots should make an effort to switch to English whenever a pilot gets on the frequency in English. At least for those in his vicinity.

To all of you who claim only English should be used in aviation communications... well I think you are smoking some really good stuff!

Give me an example of any accidents, incidents or of a near miss where a local language was directly responsible for such an event and I don't mean a Spanish person talking in a bad English... I mean a Spanish controller talking in Spanish to a Spanish pilot and the English pilot not understanding what was said in Spanish became involved in an incident or accident.

To the poster who claims all speeches are done in English by politicians at major event... What are you talking about? Are you on crack?

Most of the time when I see meetings between heads of states they either have a translator with them or an ear piece for simultaneous translation or they pretend to know was is being said because they have seen a translated version of that speech given to them ahead of time.

Look no further than the UN in NYC when they gather in the main hall for sessions... All of them have ear pieces to get the translation of the speech being made.

You "English" only guys better get off your high horses because it will never happen and it shouldn't happen.

My $0.02.

Can they do it ?
 

The problem with most anglo-saxons pilots is not that they don't want to learn a foreign language - it's that they cannot...
As a result, many airlines are flooded with semi-illiterate types from Australia, NZ or US, who nevertheless enjoy an unfair advantage, that they speak THE language. Commonly enough, they didn't find jobs in their national carriers, where they had to suffer more serious competition from their fellow nationals. They would of course have been TOTALLY UNABLE to become pilots having to go through foreign language flight training, be it italian, french, spanish or czech..
It's an extra burden all of us from various countries had to go through, at least to the benefit of our intellectual abilities. But when you are monolingual, you cannot figure that.
Now regarding ATC issues, I have been flying regionals then widebodies for years all over the world, and no, those places where they mix with their languages are not such an issue - anyway, are you really listening to the rest of the R/T ?
I think it's just because anglo-saxons find it annoying - I know it ! - when they have people in the vicinity conversing in another language , probably because it does remind them that there is a life outside, of which they cannot grasp anything, so sad...
I hope to be literate in russian, italian, german and french by the way...

G-SSWN, CDG, 25 May 2000

IIRC SAS at Milan Linate. I was flying there not long afterward, and the weather was ratsh*t. We were following a local, and on short final I was trying to get confirmation that he had vacated the runway, since all comms between him and the tower were in Italian. All set for a go-around when it was confirmed, in English, that he had done so.

Has anyone noticed how nearly all Air Europa pilots are now speaking completely in English?

They've definitely been made aware of the change, and are following it (for now).

Reinhardt for such a clearly intelligent individual such as yourself I find it remarkable that you fail to grasp such a simple concept that no matter what language you choose for international R/T communications, there will be some who have the advantage that it is their native language. So which language do we choose then, maybe Klingon?

Maybe then we would also be spared your posts generalising and stereotyping numerous nationalities in one go, presumably because of some form of racism, which incidentally is what you accuse THEM of. Talk about hypocrisy.

Jet Jockey A4 and Reinhardt, you were spot on !

Plastic 787, by accusing people you disagree with of racism, it's easy answer and you just followed the well-used path of political correctness, so common in those countries the issue is all about :)

So someone can make a statement that implies the reason English speaking pilots don't like others using other languages is because basically they don't like "Johnny foreigner" - CLEARLY IMPLYING racism - but then in the same breath totally patronises various nationalities (funnily enough all English speaking ones) and talks about them in a disparaging manner yet nobody should be allowed to rightfully call that out as racism itself and how hypocritical it is? Bravo sir.

787 (?) you missed the point.
Just that some individuals, from those countries we all know, will often have very average background and abilities, and then by the virtue of having THE language as their mother tongue, they miraculously look brilliant and once again, enjoy therefore an unfair - although real - advantage.
And by the way many of those foreigners will speak and write a better english than those "native" speakers...

Reinhardt again that is going to happen no matter what language you choose. I don't care what language is chosen as the language of international R/T communications, regardless of whether it is English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Malay, Esperanto or Klingon, it should be the ONLY one spoken.

I think I clearly grasped your point when you clearly generalised that Anglo Saxons can't speak other languages and therefore get annoyed when others speak in a language they can't grasp...

I truly hope "Lockheed Blackbird" is joking, because the ICAO ELP is about gaining level 4 or more ... IN ENGLISH! If he likes French language that much, why did he choose an English name to post? Should be called "L'oiseau noir"...

Local/National language is fine in flying clubs and uncontrolled airspace. Any commercial flight should be operated in English. Period. How come the Dutch, the Swiss (They have at least 3 national languages and none of them is English), Danish, Swedish, Austrians, etc, can all use English for professional pilots, and France or Spain wouldn't? It is just resistance to change and to adapt. If the french resist this so much, maybe they do not deserve the ELP level 4 or 5 that they have on their license. Should not be a problem if they really had the ELP they claim?

I may have misunderstood you when you claim that Anglo-Saxon pilots cannot learn a foreign language.

But in my opinion, it is not that we cannot learn a foreign language, as we certainly can, it is a question of just what language or more accurately, languages.

I have flown Central and South American, Spanish, so that would be easy as every country speaks Spanish, Except for Brazil, oops, Portuguese. So now that is three languages, English, Spanish and Portuguese and I’ve not crossed any oceans.

Now I’ve also flown in the Philippines, China, Singapore, Viet Nam (well after the war), Dubai, India, etc. and I’ve not even gotten to Turkey, Greece and the rest of ‘Europe’. So how many languages is that? I’ve lost count.

No, there can be only one language used in ATC communication by both pilots and controllers and that language is English.

Lockheed Blackbird:Riiiiight...

ICAO Language Proficiency Requirements (LPRs) - English For Aviation

I'm sure this Lockheed blackbird person is a wind up. ... Can't be that ill informed.... Surement.
Mon Dieu!

Just my 2c worth here as a monolingual pilot who was once told never to take a French class ever again but can order a beer in 7 languages. :}

When flying for my operator, I fully expect that, per the internationally accepted standards, that I will be able to communicate in English no matter where I am dispatched to within controlled airspace. With that being said, I also understand that there will be the possibility for local language(s) on frequency. I expect, however, that I will be provided any pertinent information from those local conversations - as someone pointed out, whether an aircraft cleared the runway I am about to land on. Furthermore, I fully expect that any emergency transmission I make will be understood by every pilot.

Now, were I to privately trek off into some Swiss valley (as another poster alluded to), I would think it best to do some due diligence and find out if they actually spoke English locally. If they did not, I would at least try my best to figure out the basic lingo for the area.

The fact that English and French are the only two "official" languages of aviation are a happy coincidence to aviation history. Had China figured out how to fly 2,000 years ago or had Germany won the war, it would be a far different story. In any event, it benefits some and not others.

Reinhardt and his ilk are living in a little world of their own if they have not yet realised that the real world is rapidly becoming monolingual or at least national languages becoming secondary. The language of communication is English for good or ill and no arrogant and insulting statements will change that. The youth of today communicate across the globe via social media etc in a single language and in a few generations most educated people in all countries will use English as a first language.

+TSRA = spot on and thank you for your reasonable attitude. A shame not more English-only speaking pilots are prepared to make an effort to share the burden of increasing flight safety.

As I implied in an earlier post, I would like to see simple rules adopted by ICAO.

1. In controlled airspace, English and local language should be equally acceptable - the onus being on ATC to be of sufficient linguistic competence to ensure separation. Aircrew should be encouraged to contribute to flight safety by gaining ICAO linguistic competence in languages other than English.

2. In uncontrolled airspace, only local language should be acceptable. If you do not have equivalent of level 4 competence in the local language then don't venture into uncontrolled airspace!

Language in aviation
 

Did a Google and Bing search on "Official Aeronautic Language" and did not come up with anything other than English EXCEPT for a passenger on an Air France flight who was told they could not sit in an exit row unless fluent in French as FRENCH was the official language of aviation.

After 40 years flying for airlines (35 on international routes) would have to support a common language in aviation. I admire those who have made the effort (a very LARGE effort) to become fluent in English so as to pursue their passion for aviation. For those of us who were fortunate to have English as their mother tongue, it took a large burden off our shoulders and our transition to professional pilots much simpler. Our only linguistic obligation was to learn and use STANDARD aviation phraseology.

Canada went through the dilemma of muti-lingual communications many years ago (mid 70s I believe) when they changed their air regulation to permit both French and English to be spoken in Quebec. This generated a large controversy in the aviation community, but politics demanded that the change be adopted. It should be noted that there has not been a language related aviation incident (as far as I know) in Quebec airspace.

Personally, I believe that there is a degradation to safety when one is unable to understand local or enroute communications. This, unfortunately, is the reality of our environment at this time. I applaud Spain to taking a stand on the issue and would support this initiative in other countries. As a unilingual pilot, however, it appears to be self-serving. This initiative needs international support from the aviation communities in those countries that do NOT have English as their primary language.

France has played a big part in the history of aviation. Still think the Bleriot was one of the most avant-garde designs of the time. French was recognised as the "civilised" language many years ago and the common language of European diplomats. A battle or two brought English to the dominant global position is has today. English is currently the official language of aviation and as such, should be promoted as the common language in environments where international aviators operate.