With his knowledge that he would probably encounter
another delay at the alternate airfield of Heathrow, he
decided to declare an emergency for an approach to
his primary destination. This was in accordance with
his company procedures but a ‘Pan’ call, rather than a
‘Mayday’ would have been more appropriate.
This kind of sums it up - it worked on the day but for future reference, a PAN would have worked better.
Been there, lost tailwind, New York refused levels, etc etc. My approach is to let Shannon know on VHF that your fuel state is on minima, they pass it to London or Manchester with 40 minutes notice and the rest is usually seamless professional vectoring.
I have landed on minima 3 or 4 times, below minima with seperated runways twice, it is not pleasant, but the ATC guys will bend over backwards to help a genuine problem. Naturally, the first call is to the watch supervisor with a big thankyou.
I guess it makes the CRM lectures worthwhile
