Originally Posted by aterpster
At TWA we were taught to use "emergency" in FAA airspace and "Mayday" everywhere else. In fact, Mayday three times in oceanic.
This goes to show just how deep-rooted the cultural aspect is. I remember being briefed before my first Ex RED FLAG deployment as a young RAF pilot to use the words "declaring in-flight emergency" to get attention instead of calling PAN-PAN or MAYDAY when on US ATC frequencies. On at least four separate occasions since, I've heard non-US aircraft declaring MAYDAY to American controllers (both military and civil) being met with the response "confirm you're declaring an emergency?" And one of those times was at Lakenheath, England! Even today, US pilot and controller training seems to be at odds with modern FAA and DoD standards, both of which are aligned to ICAO.
We had a long debate on this in the Mil forum following last year's USMC KC-130/F-35 midair, in which even the immediate loss of one aircraft and catastrophic damage to the other wasn't enough to provoke a MAYDAY call from the surviving Herc crew during their several minutes of descent to a successful forced landing in a field. We're dealing with a fundamental of how people have been taught, and people tend to get defensive when that's questioned.