Originally Posted by
Piltdown Man
Always fly in such a way that you can get a bollocking in one piece.
PM
Well put: I intend to steal that quite unashamedly!
As regards handling this situation, I'm with GTE on this.
The pilot must have had several minutes between realising he wasn't going to make the climb and a potential impact with terrain. IMO, assuming totally uncooperative ATC (which probably wouldn't have been the case anyway) the sequence of events should have been:
G-XXXX: G-XXXX request 15 degrees left for terrain avoidance
ATC: Negative, maintain standard departure
(Assuming there's time for this) G-XXXX: G-XXXX requires 15 left for terrain avoidance, will declare emergency if necessary
If time not available or if:
ATC: Negative, maintain standard departure
G-XXXX: G-XXXX declares emergency, squawking 7700 turning 15 degrees left.
I have to say that, despite having been trained to do that, in all the times I've ever asked for a deviation (albeit never on a SID or standard VFR departure) I've never even got to stage two of that process.
In reality, by the time you got to stage two, ATC would almost certainly give you a vector to stay clear of terrain and away from other traffic.