Originally Posted by
Alan Baker
Sending a Mayday call is asking for help, I am not sure what help can be rendered to an airliner flying at 16,000 feet, so maybe the use of Mayday by aircraft is pointless and just declaring an emergency is the correct option.
Sending a MAYDAY is NOT just asking for help, it's also telling everyone - ATC as well as other aircraft - that there is iminent danger and you may not be asking to do things before you've done them. It's telling everyone "I'm doing whatever I think I need to do right now and I may not be be asking first. I'll tell you what I'm doing if I can and when I can."
A major decompression is most assuredly a MAYDAY if the drills are carried out correctly as you will iminently be initiating a rapid descent if you haven't already done so, that action in itself requires a MAYDAY regardless of the malfunction.
Also, when your eardrums almost burst, there's a massive bang and whoosh, the cockpit door bursts open and the cabin is full of fog, rubber jungle and screams you haven't a clue what's caused it, you could have had a midair, lost a cargo door or half the roof's come off à la Hawaii - it could have been a bomb... it'll be many minutes before you
might learn what's happened (if you ever do before landing). That's most definately an immediate MAYDAY and rapid descent until such time as you are satisfied there is no more danger -
That is not the time for the garbled , imprecise and inarticulate RT as we heard in this case and as we have in many others. Quite unlike the crisp, immaculate and unmistakable RT of the Thomsonfly in post #12.
OK, clearly she was well rattled - that's quite understandable but regular practice in MAYDAY calls throughout training would have kicked in had she recieved that in training and recurrents, it becomes second nature.