To me the first transmission sounds slightly truncated intially, and pinched/cupped, as well as during his response "5912" to the controller's query. Very well could have been through an O2 mask mic. The word "emergency" is clear enough, as is smoke in the cockpit.
Turns out on his subsequent transmission he did state "Mayday, mayday, mayday". Try listening only with your eyes closed instead of listening while reading what they've (mis) transcribed and you'll hear "Mayda (broken) day, Mayday. We'll be evacuating. We'll be evacuating 34R". Go ahead, try it.
So "Mayday" was in the cowboy's repetoire after all. Even so, after the Mayday call the controller still goes on to tell others the transmission is bogus.
Given the tower vis was 1/2 mile and rvr was 3000' - 4000', good on the crew (it sounded like the last evac transmission was from a different crewmemeber) for re-iterating which runway they were stopped/evacuating on, trying to drive the point home to a controller they most likely heard tell other aircraft on freq their transmissions aren't real. There's a good chance they couldn't be seen from the tower and less likely by a following aircraft, the crew of which would be concentrating on looking for the approach lights and Touchdown zone.
Last edited by PukinDog; 9th Apr 2012 at 02:39.