Originally Posted by
meleagertoo
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.
The pilot communicating did an impeccable job.
An explosive decompression isn’t necessarily an emergency depending on the circumstances.
A few months ago, I was in the high teens over the central US (just me, coming home from work) when there was a God-awful bang, and the rear bulkhead fascia hit the back of my seat. it started to snow in the cabin, and the cabin diff went to zero. Everything else was nominal, so I sucked O2 for a few min, called Center and asked to land at an upcoming larger airport to troubleshoot a problem. No muss, no fuss, landed and figured out that the rear cabin door was maladjusted, and had popped open sufficiently to allow the aircraft to decompress suddenly at altitude.
Didn’t need to discommode anyone, nor should I have…