We're talking about light twins and being a "private flying" forum not nescessarily commercial ops. We have a few posters who have lots of experience, and a few who have maybe done their ATPL exams and know it all as usual, and then get arsey if someone disagrees with them.
In the PRIVATE world, we have choices. We can CHOOSE to declare a mayday or NOT, depending on the situation. In the COMMERCIAL world you don't have choices, but company SOPs. In the airline video, they declared a mayday. Were they in grave danger? Not at all, these aeroplanes are designed to fly on 1 engine & once shut down the popping and exhause flames stopped. Of course you have 200 souls in the back, so company SOPs (and no doubt legislation) dictate you declare a mayday, and being a far more complex aeroplane than a light twin, it is hard to visually assess the amount of damage done so a mayday was appropriate, and also gave the FO something to do other than operate the gear and flaps.
If I am flying a twin, and I shut down one engine, I maybe able to climb quite happily. Where is the grave danger now? Sure I may urgently want to get on the ground, but my life is not in danger at the moment - I am flying along ok, gaining altitude, so now I have to remember my training and make the best of a bad situation. Of course if the engine lets go, takes part of the wing with it and causes a fire it is a completely different matter...
Common sense, if you feel the need to declare mayday, then do so, if not then you don't have to.....ATC can't do a whole lot on the ground other than move people out of the way.
Bye.
Last edited by englishal; 8th October 2007 at 04:17.