A Linguistic Review of Aviation Accidents

A systematic linguistic review of accident investigation reports contained in the Air Safety Network Accident Database by a team of applied linguists and aviation operational safety experts and accident investigators was conducted. A systematic approach to identifying accidents that occurred in multilingual and/or cross cultural contexts was used, and those accidents identified were then reviewed for possible language related factors. The study has revealed that language proficiency, including reading proficiency, affects aviation safety in a number of ways, beyond pilot and controller radiotelephony communications