I had one on my initial multi - or at least we couldn’t get the engine restarted. I asked the examiner if he wanted to make a pan or a mayday - in the event by the time we had sorted ourselves out we didn’t make either, and we got the engine restarted before landing. Having intentionally shut the engine down the aircraft was happily polling around on one, and we certainly knew why the other had stopped if not why it didn’t want to restart.
Mayday seems the correct answer but it is worth analysing why and in what circumstances.
Suppose you are mid channel working LI?
In the instant the last thing on your mind is the call. Sort the aircraft out and try and work out if the problem is stable and only related to one engine. By the time you have the aircraft under control and established the situation is stable its en route to the nearest diversion.
You now want total priority so it’s a mayday.
You might be panicked into making a call somewhat sooner and more than likely thats going to be a mayday as the natural reaction.
So, on balance, it seems to me the question is what do you achieve by calling a pan rather than a mayday given that AT will treat the event as an emergency in either circumstance? Moreover a mayday signifies you want the urgent assistance of AT - and you probably should just in case things do not remain stable, whereas a pan indicates you have a problem but do not need that urgent assistance.
Having said that, I recall my last rough running engine in a single. That resulted in an immediate pan but in hindsight I had no idea whether the engine might have stopped at any moment.
Last edited by Fuji Abound; 6th October 2007 at 21:21.