English Vs French on the Radio.

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trey kule
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by trey kule »

No, I won't. Because a quick look at the accident rate shows that there is no safety risk in flying through China without being able to speak Mandarin. What's silly is claiming that not learning a language is safe unless it's someone else that doesn't learn a language in which case it's dangerous.
Your claim is in dispute. The number of airports you can fly into in mainland China is very limited; the majority are Mandarin only. The ATC folks at ?all the non international airports there do not speak a word of English. There is no safety risk because you can’tdo it.

And, other than in some small pockets all fights in China are IFR. And kept on an a tight leash.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by rookiepilot »

ABO:
rookiepilot wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 3:35 pm
I'm a GA pilot who has flown into Quebec but more often into Eastern Ontario. I'd heard French both in controlled and uncontrolled airspace, the latter certainly is a safety concern for someone with extremely rusty French when it gets really busy.
Multiple occasions heard, (over the years) at low altitude, well inside Ontario -- over 100 nm -- on 126.70 and different Unicom frequencies while I was transiting. Can't recall one when I was actually landing -- to be fair, except perhaps Ottawa, which was controlled.

The logic of doing that, makes no sense to me. If I can be enlightened, I'm all ears.

Here's an interesting stat: (OTTAWA)
"As such it is the largest city in Canada with both English and French as co-official languages.... [T]hose with French as their mother tongue make up 14.2 percent of the population."

And for that small amount // dual language everything.

(RICHMOND BC).

"In Richmond, 44.8% indicated Chinese as their mother tongue, 33.1% indicated English".

Why isn't there approaches and the ATIS offered in Chinese at YVR?
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AuxBatOn
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by AuxBatOn »

Because you hear French and don’t understand doesn’t mean is any less safe. That’s just your perception. Language and communications is one of many barriers preventing accidents in aviation.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by rookiepilot »

AuxBatOn wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:21 pm Because you hear French and don’t understand doesn’t mean is any less safe. That’s just your perception. Language and communications is one of many barriers preventing accidents in aviation.
By that rational we should allow Chinese in the lower mainland.

Why not choose the safest option when possible?
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by trey kule »

Auxbat posted
Again, either provide facts (incident/accident reports with language as a root cause or contributing factors) or first hand experiences where language was a safety issue, not your relatively inexperienced aviator’s opinion.Again, either provide facts (incident/accident reports with language as a root cause or contributing factors) or first hand experiences where language was a safety issue, not your relatively inexperienced aviator’s opinion?
What he said......

Rookie. You show some hard facts, from CADORs, TSB investigations,etc. , and I will wholeheartedly support you.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by AuxBatOn »

rookiepilot wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:27 pm
AuxBatOn wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:21 pm Because you hear French and don’t understand doesn’t mean is any less safe. That’s just your perception. Language and communications is one of many barriers preventing accidents in aviation.
By that rational we should allow Chinese in the lower mainland.

Why not choose the safest option when possible?
If it was a primary language taught in a large proportion of schools throughout Canada then sure, let’s allow Chinese. But it is not.

By your logic, we should stop flying altogether. That’s the real safest option in aviation.

The framework of aviation (ie: the rules) is made of a balance of safety, convenience, practicality and cost. Nothing is as safe as it could be nor is it as cheap or convenient as it could.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by rookiepilot »

digits_ wrote: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:01 pm Here's another question: why even bother with an MF if there can be 2 pilot groups on the frequency that don't understand each other?

NavCanada determined an airfield needs an MF, but the pilot group/regulator decides it's not an issue if you only understand half the planes in the circuit.

At least in Ontario: We are operating under the reasonable assumption most every pilot CAN choose to communicate in English -- yet some choose not to.
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Last edited by rookiepilot on Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by confusedalot »

I don't know why I am a sucker for abuse, but whatever, I know I am wading into a situation where I will be torn apart to itty bitty pieces.

I am an English guy. I live in Quebec. Because of that, and that only (read, no special merit), I am fully bilingual. But that does not matter.

If you fly in Quebec, you WILL get service in English.

Flown around a big chunk of the world. Only by circumstance. 100% of those countries provide English service, 99% (probably more), also use another language. As far as I can tell, only Germany mandates the use of English only, even for their own nationals, but that was years ago. May have changed now.

So.......what exactly is the problem? I never encountered a safety problem because of language.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by HiFlyChick »

Interesting discussion on both sides - not sure which side I agree with at this point.

Just a real world example from a few years ago....
Flying into CYQB (or was it CYOW...can't recall) and listening to the controller talk to another guy in French and me in English. Got clearance to land and in the flare I got a call from ATC in French. My French is limited to understanding little old ladies (who generally speak slower than youngsters), so while I caught my call sign, I couldn't get what he'd said and asked "Say again". He said "Oops - sorry..." and repeated the original transmission in English, but I must confess I wondered if it had've been an emergency (i.e. runway incursion, etc) would the loss of a few precious seconds made a difference...?
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by Old fella »

confusedalot wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:49 pm I don't know why I am a sucker for abuse, but whatever, I know I am wading into a situation where I will be torn apart to itty bitty pieces.

I am an English guy. I live in Quebec. Because of that, and that only (read, no special merit), I am fully bilingual. But that does not matter.

If you fly in Quebec, you WILL get service in English.

Flown around a big chunk of the world. Only by circumstance. 100% of those countries provide English service, 99% (probably more), also use another language. As far as I can tell, only Germany mandates the use of English only, even for their own nationals, but that was years ago. May have changed now.

So.......what exactly is the problem? I never encountered a safety problem because of language.
Oh FFS, not this English vs French again. Probably like you, I remember the 1976 shit storm on the introduction of ATC bilingualism in Quebec and the associated job action and protests taken by ATC and pilots. At that time it was said there going to be major accidents by introducing bilingualism in ATC communications in Quebec, crashes every few months they thundered. It didn’t happen then and hasn’t happened now, that I am aware of. I have flown plenty in Quebec during my tenure in this business and never was a safety issue and I was never uncomfortable being unilingual English. Unfortunately for me I didn’t pursue language training that was made available to me during my time with the Regulator. A road not taken, sadly.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by rocket81 »

Like my Brit friend would say, tempest in a teapot?
IMG_1399.JPG
IMG_1399.JPG (55.64 KiB) Viewed 3897 times
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by AirFrame »

rookiepilot wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:51 pmHere's an interesting stat: (OTTAWA)
"As such it is the largest city in Canada with both English and French as co-official languages.... [T]hose with French as their mother tongue make up 14.2 percent of the population."

And for that small amount // dual language everything.

(RICHMOND BC). "In Richmond, 44.8% indicated Chinese as their mother tongue, 33.1% indicated English".
Don't get confused by the statistics. Those are percentages of the general population, not percentages of the pilots in that region. It would not surprise me that the percentage of French-speaking pilots could be higher in Ottawa than the general population, due to the proximity to Quebec. But in BC, the percentage of pilots who speak Mandarin or Cantonese as their first language is definitely lower than the percentages you reference. There are also Hindi-, Punjabi-, and Farsi-speaking pilots who are ESL.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by photofly »

rocket81 wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:53 pm Like my Brit friend would say, tempest in a teapot?

IMG_1399.JPG
Um... that's not a tea pot..?
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by Braun »

HiFlyChick wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:24 pm Interesting discussion on both sides - not sure which side I agree with at this point.

Just a real world example from a few years ago....
Flying into CYQB (or was it CYOW...can't recall) and listening to the controller talk to another guy in French and me in English. Got clearance to land and in the flare I got a call from ATC in French. My French is limited to understanding little old ladies (who generally speak slower than youngsters), so while I caught my call sign, I couldn't get what he'd said and asked "Say again". He said "Oops - sorry..." and repeated the original transmission in English, but I must confess I wondered if it had've been an emergency (i.e. runway incursion, etc) would the loss of a few precious seconds made a difference...?
If a 5 second transmission is the dfference between something happening or not a lot of other things wen't wrong before that! I have yet to come accross a situation where language, in an ATC world, has been a safety issue.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by digits_ »

Braun wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2019 9:27 am If a 5 second transmission is the dfference between something happening or not a lot of other things wen't wrong before that! I have yet to come accross a situation where language, in an ATC world, has been a safety issue.
Absolutely, I don't think anyone here thinks that speaking French in itself will make a plane crash. It's just one -imo unnecessary- hole in the cheese that one day may or may not contribute to an accident.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by 5x5 »

The horrors, just this alone must make it unbearable......

"tout trafic conflictuel s'il vous plaît aviser"!!!
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by rookiepilot »

5x5 wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2019 5:35 pm The horrors, just this alone must make it unbearable......

"tout trafic conflictuel s'il vous plaît aviser"!!!
Winner!
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by Rezy »

Fortunately, Aviation is a very safe industry and just because there isn’t a causal relationship yet, doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. The real question is, does understanding the language of other radio transmissions make aviation safer. The answer is obviously true.
The near miss in Providence comes to mind and I put it forth as an example of a US Airways flight crew that avoided a crash by understanding the conversation taking place by ATC and a United Airlines aircraft, which was lost at the airport and on an active runway, in thick fog.
ATC issued a takeoff clearance to US Airways, the pilots refused the clearance as they heard of the lost United Airlines aircraft correspondents with ATC.

Full details here :https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 971f228d28

There’s no doubt that in this instance, if the United Airlines and ATC were speaking another language, not understood by the US Airways flight crew, they would have accepted a takeoff clearance that would have led to a catastrophic crash.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by TG »

Rezy wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:13 pm Fortunately, Aviation is a very safe industry and just because there isn’t a causal relationship yet, doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. The real question is, does understanding the language of other radio transmissions make aviation safer. The answer is obviously true.
The near miss in Providence comes to mind and I put it forth as an example of a US Airways flight crew that avoided a crash by understanding the conversation taking place by ATC and a United Airlines aircraft, which was lost at the airport and on an active runway, in thick fog.
ATC issued a takeoff clearance to US Airways, the pilots refused the clearance as they heard of the lost United Airlines aircraft correspondents with ATC.

Full details here :https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 971f228d28

There’s no doubt that in this instance, if the United Airlines and ATC were speaking another language, not understood by the US Airways flight crew, they would have accepted a takeoff clearance that would have led to a catastrophic crash.
On the other end anti French speaking warriors on the radio would be all over this one below, had it happen in Quebec during dual French/english transmissions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angel ... y_disaster
The SkyWest flight was told to taxi into takeoff position while the USAir flight was landing on the same runway.
Upon landing, the 737 collided with the twin-engine turboprop
Full report:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acc ... AR9108.pdf


Everybody was speaking English there, it didn't stop the tragedy.
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Re: English Vs French on the Radio.

Post by dpm »

First, not everyone in Quebec aviation speaks English. I've often arrived at GA airports where the FBO staff has zero English, or close enough as matters.

Second, it's very tiring working in another language, even if you speak if fairly well. At the end of a day of meetings in French or Spanish, my comprehension is about 40% of what it was first thing in the morning, and my brain is foggy. Why should francophone pilots in Quebec subject themselves to extra fatigue and an elevated risk of misunderstanding all the time just because because an anglo pilot like me might occasionally stumble into their airspace?

If you're nervous, learn just a few dozen aviation phrases in French — piste, approche finale, vent-arrière, verticale de, etc — and you'll be able to follow what's happening in the circuit. It's not like someone's asking you to recite Proust.
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