The nice thing about Mayday is that it allows you to break rules or fly what could be considered recklessly as required in order to safely get the aircraft on the ground.
I declared a Mayday just this week. I was doing a flight in a small aircraft at an airport with an advisory service. During the fuel sampling on the aircraft, about a centimeter of rusty fluid was seen in the sample tube. After draining a bunch more fuel, no more contamination was seen. After a good run-up and significant ground operation, I decided to fly. I completed circuit with no issues, on the second climbout with intention to leave the circuit(straight ahead then 90 degree turn to the left), I had a couple of very brief misses in the engine(brief enough that I was wondering if I was just imagining it). I decided to turn downwind to stay close to the airport and then had a much longer power interruption. At that point I decided to immediately land downwind as the aircraft has a very poor glide capability and didn't want to take any further chances with this fuel contamination issue I had encountered. Now I am coming in to land in the opposite direction to the traffic which would normally be operating recklessly. Declaring the MayDay allowed me to use my command authority to do as I please to get safely on the ground and the aircraft on final went around.
The problem turned out to be a totally new separate issue with a bad mag.
Last edited by punkalouver; 20th September 2025 at 04:51.