Originally Posted by
finestkind
I was of the understanding that MAYDAY was to get ATC attention, yes Carl this is an emergency and should not have to be asked, minimise RT between ATC and pilot and clear everyone else off the air. But it appears you are saying a successful comms lacking in misunderstanding constitutes saying whatever you want irrelevant of supporting documentation and if this holds true for an emergency I could not see why it would not hold true in all cases. Meaning we could get rid of all those pages in the relevant doc’s and save a few trees and brain cells?
Finest Kind, have you been drinking? I’m actually not 100% sure of what you are trying to say. I think you are saying that there should be agreed upon SOP’s, heck we could even call them standards, to which I agree. I Also agree that if someone has priority you should take pains not to clutter up the radio. I’ve also been taught (And taught) that if I cant find the perfect standard phrase that clear comms is best.
Re the other stuff, I am saying a single case is a data point. It’s definitely not a trend line, particularly when it was 4 decades ago.
I’m also highlighting that in this particular case, there was a an exchange of clear, and expected phraseology between the aircraft and controller. It communicated the nature of the problem efficiently and without ambiguity. The fact that it is different to what the RAF would do, does not in and of itself make it inferior.
For the record if it was me, I would have said ‘Mayday’ in Australia or the UK, and ‘declaring an Emergency’ in the US. Because that is what the controller was expecting.