Someone said why did they call mayday so early?
I was involved in a bird strike at CWL a couple of years ago. 737 on dep hit a seagull in the starboard engine (i think) and called mayday very early on, maybe 50ft ish?
Its a good job they did, there was traffic which I was going to clear for takeoff as the crew called Mayday. As a result the departure was held and a runway inspection carried out. The runway inspection carried turned up several fan blades / parts of fan blades on the runway. They could have caused another equally difficult situation for the next a/c.