Narrative:

Two incidents happened with aircraft X. It started when he approached the runway for departure. Aircraft X called ready and my trainee told him to hold short. He read back hold short. The trainee then told an aircraft at the taxiway intersection K to line up and wait. As the K aircraft took the runway so did aircraft X. I keyed up and told aircraft X that he was not given permission on the runway. Since there was no traffic on final; I told him to line up and wait and that traffic would be departing down field. He did not answer so then I broke it down even further for him and said 'turn right onto the runway and hold your position'. He indicated that he understood the instructions instead of reading back the line up and wait instructions. He then turned 180 degrees back to the taxiway in the face of the traffic that was waiting to depart after him. He made another 180 degree turn and held short of the runway. At this point I realized that the language barrier was a much bigger problem than I expected and knew that getting this pilot to comply with basic instructions was going to be very hard; and even harder to get him to say what he is supposed to say. I was happy that he was holding short of the runway and instructed the trainee to leave him there while other planes landed and departed. Once we had a bigger opening on final after aircraft Y landed; the trainee instructed aircraft X to line up and wait. He read it back but was very hard to understand which immediately made me nervous. I instructed the trainee to prompt aircraft Y to exit the runway as soon as possible to which aircraft Y replied that he could not take taxiway D but would exit at taxiway west. While he was saying that I kept my eyes on aircraft X who started rolling down the runway. I yelled at him to stop and that he was not cleared for takeoff and to exit the runway immediately. I then reiterated to exit next taxiway; issued the brasher warning; and told him to contact ground control. This is a constant problem that never seems to get solved. Foreign registry aircraft that cannot do their jobs correctly because of the language barrier. As a controller; we are forced to use phraseology we don't normally use to explain simple actions and consistently used practices to these pilots. There needs to be a way to hold foreign registry pilots accountable. Especially repeat offenders as I believe this particular plane is. Find a way to hold repeat offenders accountable to matter where they are from.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SAT Tower controllers observed an aircraft enter a runway without authorization and subsequently begin to takeoff without clearance. The controllers believes the foreign pilot did not understand their instructions.

Narrative: Two incidents happened with Aircraft X. It started when he approached the runway for departure. Aircraft X called ready and my trainee told him to hold short. He read back hold short. The trainee then told an aircraft at the taxiway intersection K to Line up and Wait. As the K aircraft took the runway so did Aircraft X. I keyed up and told Aircraft X that he was not given permission on the runway. Since there was no traffic on final; I told him to Line Up and Wait and that traffic would be departing down field. He did not answer so then I broke it down even further for him and said 'turn right onto the runway and hold your position'. He indicated that he understood the instructions instead of reading back the Line Up and Wait instructions. He then turned 180 degrees back to the taxiway in the face of the traffic that was waiting to depart after him. He made another 180 degree turn and held short of the runway. At this point I realized that the language barrier was a much bigger problem than I expected and knew that getting this pilot to comply with basic instructions was going to be very hard; and even harder to get him to say what he is supposed to say. I was happy that he was holding short of the runway and instructed the trainee to leave him there while other planes landed and departed. Once we had a bigger opening on final after Aircraft Y landed; the trainee instructed Aircraft X to Line Up and Wait. He read it back but was very hard to understand which immediately made me nervous. I instructed the trainee to prompt Aircraft Y to exit the runway as soon as possible to which Aircraft Y replied that he could not take taxiway D but would exit at taxiway W. While he was saying that I kept my eyes on Aircraft X who started rolling down the runway. I yelled at him to stop and that he was not cleared for takeoff and to exit the runway immediately. I then reiterated to exit next taxiway; issued the brasher warning; and told him to contact ground control. This is a CONSTANT problem that never seems to get solved. Foreign registry aircraft that cannot do their jobs correctly because of the language barrier. As a controller; we are forced to use phraseology we don't normally use to explain simple actions and consistently used practices to these pilots. There needs to be a way to hold foreign registry pilots accountable. Especially repeat offenders as I believe this particular plane is. Find a way to hold repeat offenders accountable to matter where they are from.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.