Lots to agree with in previous posts.
Except: DAPT, your suggestion is best described as DAFT! Mayday calls don't need to be mandatory. They are at the forefront of all pilots thoughts if ever immediate assistance is required. Until that moment in any cockpit process it is an unnecessary, even dangerous distraction!
And zorab, I genuinely don't want an argument however:
d) (OPTIONAL - as I'm fully aware of both benefits & pitfalls of limited knowledge, but would rather they had some (which we encourage) than none) if TFOs have some understanding of the aircraft / captions / systems,
And
if you were to try any game like that with our team, on a Police task; at night; at anywhere near that fuel state; whether CAD/captions were possibly working or not; you'd more than likely find yourself having a "robust debrief" with your TFOs which would probably bring all CRM skills to the fore!
Do you see what difficulties you are creating here. Such CRM discussions should occur in the air, at the time, in order to potentially save life. Not in any "robust debrief"! But they can't precisely because there is only
ONE aviation professional responsible for the driving! Some observers may have a little knowledge, some may not, but it's NOT a requirement nor a qualification. Otherwise you start to run into
this problem:
I have said the evidence so far has presented questions about what happened that Night that would support the notion the Pilot and/or Police Crew likely made some mistakes.
Which is
DEEPLY unfair to the relatives of the two police officers on board this aircraft, and the two officers themselves!