[lujim]

It's more that FAA Oversight=Good/Less FAA Oversight=Bad. Not only are less of these mechanics FAA certified but the geographical element is also a problem.

The vast majority of this maintenance is probably level D heavy checks where you almost literally pull the plane apart and put it back together. However if they are doing non scheduled maintenance that means they are flying thousands of miles with tons of deferred (broken) maintenance items to whichever developing country is doing the fixin.

I would argue that reading and speaking English IS a big deal when your working on a plane that is labeled, placarded, has instrumentation, has maintenance manuals written in English. You know the last time you sat on a plane and there was a mechanic talking to the pilots and you are thinking "what the hell are we waiting for"? You were waiting for the maintenance logs to be completed and for the pilot to take a full inventory of any deferred item and how it changed the way he will be operating the plane today. The pilot was also probably talking to the mechanic who gave him the scoop on how many times so and so item has been written up recently or whatever other applicable info (it's in the logs, but it's nice when the mechanic can draw your attention to certain things). A gigantic part of the maintenance process is documentation and talking to the mechanics that fixed the problem.

[nickbauman]

English is the official language of aviation (in the operational sense).

http://www.aviation-esl.com/ICAO_English.htm