Originally Posted by
parkfell
Can you give me an example when a MAYDAY declared, and ATC “might not take any response at all”. I am curious.
Several years ago at Aberdeen an inbound helicopter made a rather panicky MAYDAY call on first contact with me on the TWR around 8 miles from the airfield , “unable to lower the landing gear”. At the time, our local instructions stated that for helicopters making a MAYDAY call at that stage of flight an “Aircraft Accident Imminent” must be declared by ATC to the emergency services, however, based on previous experience with similar circumstances I delayed this until the intentions of the captain were established. A much calmer voice from the cockpit stated, “we’ll just hold offshore and try to sort it out”. Ten minutes later the problem was sorted, gear down and a normal approach and landing made.