Those guys headed for the Moon did not need any sort of ATC clearance, did they? I don't think you can find a strong parallel to this recent accident in their RT procedures.
ATC is not expected to have to guess at what a pilot needs to do and then sort out his problems for him. This is why we have to say, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" or at least in plain speech that magic word, "emergency." Saying that you need a lower altitude, well, yes, okay, but stand by for that; that could take a few minutes to work out on a routine basis.
You do get these tragedies where the crew had said, "We are low on fuel," or "We need priority," or whatever. Well, that's good to know, but if they were Number Six for approach, ATC was not going to jump them to the head of the queue just on the strength of that. You always have that question, asked or unasked by ATC, "What are your intentions?" That's you, the pilot-in-command, not some controller sat in a chair; he's already safely on the ground.
If this aircraft had a pressurization problem then the drill probably should have been something like: masks on; initiate emergency descent to FL100; declare emergency to ATC; squawk 7700; run emergency checklist.
That's all very well to sit here now writing about, but think of being sat there just enjoying the ride, your shiny-new turboprop humming along, when "BONG!" you have to start thinking, "Uh. What was that?" You could eat up a good minute or so just trying to figure out what your problem is, and then waste further time with this sort of "I need [this or that]," asking, when the controller is not going to drop everything to help you unless you declare an emergency and tell him what you are doing.
The TUC at FL280 is about three minutes or less. If this accident pilot were sat there, mask off at a pressure altitude of 28 thousand feet, then by the time the controller had sorted out the requested lower altitudes for him he might well have already been unable to respond effectively. It certainly looks as if that were the case.
Last edited by chuks; 8th Sep 2014 at 08:35.