Chinese (and other) pilots unable to speak English pose danger for air travel (CNN)

wrote:
On 29 Jun, 12:39, "El Maximo" wrote:

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote in messagenews

Matthias van Henk wrote:

As more and more aviation business is operated from Asia and Chinese is
the most spoken language in the world all communication should be made
in Chinese then. :-)

If Won Wing Low had been the Father of Aviation, it could have been!

--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

Allegedly, a Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich
overheard the following:
Umm, which year did PanAm stop flying in Germany?

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in
Germany. Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because
you lost the bloody war."


Thats rubbish
All the german pilots speak english the whole time with the tower,
even on domestic flights in germany
and they all speak perfect english


Yes, just another haha silly Germans story.
It's not entirely true that all pilots speak Englsih, VFR sport pilots
can use German, but certainly all formal ATC communication is in English.
By comparision, the French use - guess what - French for ATC as well
as English. They have special rights, of course.

T.

writes:

and they all speak perfect english

Germans who speak perfect English are extremely rare.

In a previous article, Matthias van Henk said:
As more and more aviation business is operated from Asia and Chinese is
the most spoken language in the world all communication should be made
in Chinese then. :-)

There is no such language as "Chinese". There are dozens of mutually
unintelligible languages in China. I know people from different areas of
China who can't even understand each other when they're supposedly both
speaking Mandarin, so they speak English to each other.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"I picked up a Magic 8-Ball the other day and it said 'Outlook not so
good.' I said, 'Sure, but Microsoft still ships it.'" - unk.

On 2007-06-29 06:38:49 -0700, (Paul Tomblin) said:

In a previous article, Matthias van Henk said:
As more and more aviation business is operated from Asia and Chinese is
the most spoken language in the world all communication should be made
in Chinese then. :-)

There is no such language as "Chinese". There are dozens of mutually
unintelligible languages in China. I know people from different areas of
China who can't even understand each other when they're supposedly both
speaking Mandarin, so they speak English to each other.

You see that all over Asia. People who supposedly speak the same
dialect who cannot understand each other, so they speak English.
English has become what Esperanto was intended to be.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

C J Campbell writes:

You see that all over Asia. People who supposedly speak the same
dialect who cannot understand each other, so they speak English.
English has become what Esperanto was intended to be.

Chinese is a special case because the spoken versions of Chinese are mutually
incomprehensible; they are completely different. At the same time, the
written versions are generally coherent. So one Chinese person may have no
idea what another Chinese person is saying, but he will immediately understand
if they communicate in writing on a piece of paper.

This is a consequence of the Chinese use of symbols for concepts in the
written language, rather than symbols for sounds. The written language
provides almost no clue to pronunciation, and so pronunciation drifts until
the spoken languages become completely separated.

It's also one reason why Chinese is not likely to ever become a universal
language.

In a previous article, Mxsmanic said:
Chinese is a special case because the spoken versions of Chinese are mutually
incomprehensible; they are completely different. At the same time, the
written versions are generally coherent. So one Chinese person may have no
idea what another Chinese person is saying, but he will immediately understand
if they communicate in writing on a piece of paper.

Actually, it's not a special case, and it's not soley because they use a
symbolic written language. I have a Lebanese friend who can read Arabic
newspapers from around the Arab world, but he says he can understand
spoken Arabic from Syrians and Iraqis, but not from Egyptians or anybody
further away because the pronunciation drift around the Med.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"Mission Control clears SMS-1 to Canaveral via thrust vectors, Up, Hold
Earth, right turns, expect further clearance in ten days."
http://www.avweb.com/news/usedacft/181561-1.html

On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:16:23 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Chinese is a special case because the spoken versions of Chinese are mutually
incomprehensible; they are completely different. At the same time, the
written versions are generally coherent.

My daughter took Chinese at university. She knew she was in trouble
when she looked at the lad beside her and saw that he was taking notes
in ideograms.

Though he had a huge advantage, in that he knew both the tones and the
ideograms, he was from San Francisco and therefore had learned
Cantonese, not the Mandarin taught at university.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
forthcoming from HarperCollins www.flyingtigersbook.com

Matthias van Henk writes:

As more and more aviation business is operated from Asia and Chinese is
the most spoken language in the world all communication should be made
in Chinese then. :-)

Chinese has a very limited geographic distribution. English is the most
widely spoken language, even if it has fewer _native_ speakers.

While I do not doubt that the Chinese influence in the world will continue to
grow, I don't expect this to have much effect on the use of language.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

CNN's Web page has a video segment from The Situation Room that
describes the serious problems with international pilots who cannot
speak English well enough to communicate with air traffic control.
They provide a recording of communications with Air China flight 981
in April in which the pilot has no idea what the controller is saying
and the controller's frustration continues to build as his
instructions are not followed. (This same recording has been
circulating in aviation forums for months.) Air China says that it
was the controller's fault for not speaking "standard" English, but
the recording makes it clear that the pilots simply couldn't speak or
understand at all.

Several Chinese pilots and officials are interviewed; all are provided
with subtitles (even though they are nominally speaking English)
because their English is unintelligible. One pilot who supposedly
passed an English test that will soon become mandatory is asked if he
has ever had problems, and his response, in extremely broken English,
is also unintelligible. And he's one of the pilots who passed?

It's a rather alarming report. Controllers have known about the
problem for years but nothing has ever been done.


Bull****


Bertie