Mayday call from a military aircraft

[MPN11]

Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator

MPN, "er Houston, we have problem"

"Err ... location, please, and nature of emergency?"

[SpazSinbad]

During my time onboard the reply from 'LittleF' (LCDR Flying) in FLYCO would have been:

"Roger - Standby" (brings a smile to me dial every time).

[just another jocky]

In the UK, there's little need to give position thanks to the excellent triangulation capability based down at Swanwick. Squawk 7700 and the lights & whistles will flash and there will a room full of folk concentrating solely on you.

[OvertHawk]

As I once found out when I accidentally set set 7700 instead of 7000 when changing frequencies and then left it a couple of minutes before calling the next frequency!!!

They were very nice about it actually.

[MPN11]

ATC tends to understand, and sympathise, with a case of 'fat finger'.

It's only when the Driver starts getting stroppy, and deying it was his fault, that we get a bit grumpy

Most of us, on both sides of the fence, are human.

[orgASMic]

Originally Posted by haihio

how do you do a standard military mayday call? Do you transmit three times mayday followed by three times the aircraft call sign and other info?
I think there is a slight difference from the civilian way of transmitting a mayday call - that is that aircraft call sign is only transmitted once.
Can you please confirm this ?

It has been RAF policy to use CAP 413 phraseology for a few years now:

From CAP 413:

Emergency Message
8.13 The emergency message shall contain the following information (time
and circumstance permitting) and, whenever possible, should be passed
in the order given:
1. ‘MAYDAY/MAYDAY/MAYDAY’ (or ‘PAN PAN/PAN PAN/PAN PAN’);
2. Name of the station addressed (when appropriate and time and
circumstances permitting);
3. Callsign;
4. Type of aircraft;
5. Nature of the emergency;
6. Intention of the person-in-command;
7. Present or last known position, flight level/altitude and heading;
8. Pilot qualifications (See Note 1), viz:
a) Student pilots (see Notes 2 and 3);
b) No Instrument Qualification;
c) IMC Rating;
d) Full Instrument Rating.
9. Any other useful information e.g. endurance remaining, number of
people on board (POB), aircraft colour/markings, any survival aids.

Notes:
5 Emergency messages by military pilots are different and are detailed
in ATM 3000 Manual of Military Air Traffic Management.


However, neither ATM 3000 nor MMATM give specific phraseology:

From MMATM, Chapter 4:

73. Action by the Pilot. The pilot is required to carry out the following actions:
a. Make a distress call as soon as possible and squawk emergency. The
call will include Air System type, altitude/height and position.
b. Advise ATC of initial intentions and request any assistance immediately
required such as determining position, heading to location of nearest suitable
Aerodrome or heading to reach nearest land.
c. Generally advise ATC of the progress of the recovery.
d. Advise ATC of any change in intentions.


AP 3456 CFS Manual of Flying says:

Emergency Transmissions
3. A transmission to be made in an emergency consists of two parts: the emergency call and the emergency message.
a. Emergency Call. Table 1 sets out the content of the radio telephony (R/T) Urgency and Distress calls.
Table 1 Emergency Calls
Degree of Emergency
Proword (R/T)
Distress
Urgency
"Mayday – Mayday – Mayday" Aircraft callsign (3 times)
"Pan Pan – Pan Pan – Pan Pan " Aircraft callsign (once)
b. Emergency Message. The emergency message should include as much of the following information as is relevant and as time permits:
(1) Callsign.
(2) Type of aircraft.
(3) Nature of emergency.
(4) Captain’s intentions and assistance required.
(5) Present or last known position, flight level/altitude and heading.
(6) Pilot qualifications (if relevant e.g. Student Pilot/Instrument Rating etc).
(7) Any other useful information (e.g. persons on board/endurance/aircraft colour etc).

In practice, I have received as an ATCO (and was taught as baby pilot) "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, callsign, Mayday" (pause for acknowledgement) "PATHASATNI (position and time, heading and speed, aircraft type, nature of emergency, captain's intentions)."

[MPN11]

Time can, of course, be pressing when transimittin a MAYDAY.

"MAYDAy, Delta 42, ejecting 20 mikes south of ... ****, Nav, where are we?" may well be sufficient many cases!

The full message, as specified, is unlikely to be transmitted for real ... or am I wrong?

[Pontius Navigator]

MPN, sadly you are correct as many recent cases have proven that with bombs, missiles, one in which they failed to even Aviate, and no doubt others unknown causes.

[MPN11]

yup, when Aviating ceases to be an option, and Navigating isn't part of the game any more, just Communicate while you have a few seconds left ... or indeed after, as Lt (then ?) Wiggins demonstrated.

Give the emergency services a clue! Stuff the full script ... in a MAYDAY scenario there isn't time for all that, usually.

[ShyTorque]

A distress call made by a certain helicopter crewman went along the lines of:

"HELP, HELP, we're crashing, HELP!"

But it worked.

[unclenelli]

Finningley was handling the downing of a Bulldog ivo Markham Moor in 1994/1995.
I took a call on switchboard from some muppet wanting to speak to the Supervisor - he was promptly (but politely) told to poke off and call back later. He then elevated his call to a FLASH, so I put him through.
If he'd have made this clear in the first instance, it would have saved him so much bollocks and fobbing off!!!

[unclenelli]

D&D

When I workied in D&D Prestwick, a small 4 seater called Scottish Civil with a Mayday.
They had set off from Wick to Varga (Faeroes- METAR RED & TAFing RED!!!) with 2:30 duration, 4:30 endurance and a Tailwind! (You can see where this is going!)

Before the 61N border they declared a PAN, but continued to head on to Varga!
At H/O to Rejkavik, they decided to head for Iceland (another 3hrs flight! - Maths!!!!)

I suggested to D&D Controller (as is the right of anybody in D&D to suggest a COA to the controller, but it is his right to choose the COA to follow), that they headed East (Crosswind, but No headwind) to Fair Isle (strip long enough to take a landing, but not long enough to Depart (NOT OUR PROBLEM!!!)

We could have had Sumburgh CG out to shadow them in and a quick pick-up if they fell short.

Crew elected for Iceland and swam the last mile!!!!!!!



You just can't tell some poeple!!!!

[unclenelli]

MPN11

As you stated, FIH is purely a guideline if you don't have enough time!
Get out as much as you can while you can, f**k protocol, just get it out there!

At Bastion, Sep 2006, I was one of the first to see the mIRC of XV230 report from the Harrier. Straight onto CCIS/RASDA to see the callsign/type/dep/dest/AAR. Once Minimise kicked in, so-called "Aviation Experts" on Sky News (our only remaining link to the outside world) started spouting Bollocks which upset ODI crews. Not to mention KIN families who at that stage probably thought they weren't involved. "The only aircraft to carry that many people is a C130 or a CH47"

[SATCOS WHIPPING BOY]

As a student observer in the late 80's we used PATCASATNE (or something similar, memory is old and dull now). C for Course instead of H for Heading. Anyway...

We were at the "emergency declaration" phase of training and I do remember hearing on the radio. "Culdrose approach, err... Juliet 67 ...err...(and then in an excited voice) PATCASATNE, PATCASATNE, PATCASATNE". Followed shortly by what sounded like a thwack and the immortal words, still on transmit " I'm doing the best I can". :-)

Having dealt with a few from the other end as an ATCO, usually the first "MAYDAY" is enough to get everyone awake and searching for the transmitting aircraft. That one word alone certainly focuses the mind.

[Pure Pursuit]

Originally Posted by unclenelli

MPN11

As you stated, FIH is purely a guideline if you don't have enough time!
Get out as much as you can while you can, f**k protocol, just get it out there!

At Bastion, Sep 2006, I was one of the first to see the mIRC of XV230 report from the Harrier. Straight onto CCIS/RASDA to see the callsign/type/dep/dest/AAR. Once Minimise kicked in, so-called "Aviation Experts" on Sky News (our only remaining link to the outside world) started spouting Bollocks which upset ODI crews. Not to mention KIN families who at that stage probably thought they weren't involved. "The only aircraft to carry that many people is a C130 or a CH47"

Not entirely sure what your second paragraph has to do with this thread...

I've heard a few PAN/Mayday/IFE calls in my time and they've never followed the prescribed format, especially in theatre.

I always told any students to just acknowledge an emergency straight away and then shut up. Your acknowledgement might be the last thing the crew hear before pulling the handle...

The format is just a guide.

[Pontius]

My favourite story is still that of an RN Sea King in the dip who suffered a double engine failure. With, basically, no time before they sploshed into the oggin the call was, allegedly, "Mayfukpanday". They were found

[D-IFF_ident]

Depends where the pilot is trained basically.

ICAO procedures require the subject aircraft to relay its callsign a minimum of once.

UK procedures require the callsign only once.

Australian procedures require the callsign 3 times.

USA seems happy with "Reach XXX declaring an emergency".

[SARF]

M.I.R.P. D.A.N.I.O. In the RNLI

Everything 3 times.
Mayday
Identification
Repeat !
Position

Distress. Well that's a given
Assistance required
Number on board. Remembering to count oneself
Intentions
Over, let's not forget radio discipline.

I appreciate the difference between 30 knots and 300 but I,d be going for
,mayday.. I.d. and position before anything else goes wrong

[ORAC]

Do they still teach Speechless procedure and the HEFOE code?

[Rick777]

Guess it's simpler in the states. Military or civil it's just call sign declaring an emergency. I've never done or heard of anyone declare a practice emergency.