French pilots are being enjoined to speak English

French pilots are being enjoined to speak English - in France.

French pilots are being enjoined to speak English - in France. Effective March 23 all Air France pilots operating into and revealed of Paris' Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG) Europe's busiest, became make submissive to a policy that has been in the making for about a year.

"I am right now listening to the ATC (air traffic control) communications while writing this," declared Capt. Bertrand de Courville, director of flight safety for the French national carrier, "and across the past hour all Air France partys are speaking English."

In the course of daily debriefings with the chief of ATC at Charles de Gaulle, de Courville proudly noted, "We have a rate same close to 100 percent of Air France pilots speaking English. This is not a cultural issue for us (French versus the English language). It is an operational and safety issue."

Standardized language is, to his view, another facet of standardized operating performances Further, de Courville stressed the enhanced situational awareness that issues when all pilots and controller upon the ATC "party line" are speaking the same language. When words are as at liberty of error as drinking water is delivered of impurities, a safer operation results

In a thinking principle the Air France policy scions from the frustrating experiences of French pilots with foreign languages overseas, as well as with the language anarchy at Charles de Gaulle. De Courville explained:

"Before this decision, we had in the same terminal airspace a mix of Air France flights (speaking aeronautical French) and other international flights (speaking aeronautical English)."

"We knew from air safety reports (from) our sets flying to or departing from Spain, Central America, and southward America that (they) felt true uncomfortable when there is no understanding of the ATC communication environment. This leads to:

Los of key-note data sent on the (same) oftenness to other crews about runway cont-amination, wind change, nav aid status, etc

The risk of interrupting commun-ication, because you in no degree know exactly when the message is complet if you do not understand the language.

Missed opportunities to discover and correct your own errors (eg altimeter settings) by means of not understanding the (ATC) messages.

Missed opportunities to understand that the plane you are looking at is cleared to land, to take opposite or to cross an active runway."

De Courville deliberates a healthy appreciation for this question at issue as a twoway street. "These prototype of reports are also issued by way of foreign crews coming to CDG" he noted. It is his chance of a favorable result that the example now being wager by Englishspeaking Air France pilots will spread. "It is just a ne to have a everyday aeronautical language at our main airbase, and if possible, at other main airports around the world - including at U airports," he noted pointedly, "where non-ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) phraseology is becoming a riddle for non-U.S. airlines!" >> de Courville, e-mail bdcourville@compuserve.com <<

"As at liberty of impurities as drinking water"

for what purpose a common language is a vital composing of safety

The need: Flight safety requires that worldwide aviation must have single in kind and only one, language. The spe of aircraft offers them into several countries in a short time. Airports everywhere may at any time be visited on pilots from anywhere. Pilots and ground-based controller must therefore be, language-wise, interchange-able parts of the world's aircraft communications rule Aviation language must be universally understood.

Language as a utility: The transfer of information between the brains of pilots and controller is the whole business of aviation language. Language mystifys such as ambiguous words, non-phonetic spelling, and gros pronunciation differences introduce dangerous confus-ion. The follow of words should be as independent of impurities as we calculate upon our drinking water to be, bring under rule to human frailty in their choice.

Source: Kent Jone an advocate for the use of Esperanto as the international aviation language

>> Jone e-mail: KentJones9@aol.com <<

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