Delta engine failure-Prague
 

Is it just me or are the DL 76s prone to engine problems in recent times? Seem to have heard of quite a few issues lately with them.

What a ripper video.

Nicely shot and edited. Roughly 22 minutes elapsed time between the engine letting go and coming to a halt on the runway.

Great vid - love the old 76' climb capability on one engine.

All handled very well, apart from the (initial) non-standard r/t from Delta :E

So even outside of the US, American pilots are reluctant to utter the word "Mayday"?

It was not the procedure for decades and to give this crew credit they didn’t get the chance, they were contacted by the tower before being able to make that call

They did a good job

You have misheard the r/t. Listen to it again and Delta refers to themselves as "emergency aircraft".

It would be interesting to know what phaseology they use when practising emergencies in the simulator.

I was chastised on my last AQP ride for saying "Mayday."

ICAO RT is waaaaay down on the list of priorities in 'Merica.

We are now beaten with a wet towel anytime we say anything but Mayday x3 in the sIm.
:ouch:

The times of :
Uh….mumble….declaring…mumble…’murhency….mumble…*profanities*


….are supposed to be over.

We all know that the US of A have their own anything-goes phraseology which, I guess, is fine if you're flying domestically in that country. However, it might not be a bad idea for crews flying internationally to abide by ICAO standards when operating outside of the USA.

We were taught eng fail is not a May Day call, simply ‘we are declaring an emergency’ or ‘pan pan’ (which some controllers don’t seem to understand)

The point of having a pilot in the flight deck is that human judgement in the actual situation is better than any preconceived management idea or that taught in training.

Mayday is the international standard; a good starting point which can either be downgraded, or added to with additional information.

There is no standard engine failure, nor standard classification at the time of the event.

A 'Mayday' is entirely appropriate anywhere in the world when losing 50% or more of your powerplant.

Pilots flying internationally should not have to tailor their R/T to suit local customs. The US does not adhere to ICAO standards on many things because, quite simply, it was 'not invented here'.

According to https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33...026Nov2020.pdf
States of Emergency 8.2 The states of emergency are classified as follows:
1. Distress A condition of being threatened by serious and/or imminent danger and of requiring immediate assistance.
2. Urgency A condition concerning the safety of an aircraft or other vehicle, or of some person on board or within sight, but does not require immediate assistance.
8.3 The pilot should start the emergency call with the appropriate international RTF prefix as follows: 1. Distress ‘MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY’
2. Urgency ‘PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN’ UHF and VHF Emergency Service 8.4 The UK Distress and Diversion (D&D) Section is located at the London Control Centre. It is manned by RAF control staff who are assisted in the provision of an emergency service on the International Aeronautical Emergency Frequency 121.5 MHz and on 243.0 MHz by suitably equipped civil and military units and certain HM Coastguard stations. The service is available continuously to pilots flying within UK airspace who are in distress, in urgent need of assistance, or experiencing difficulties (i.e. temporarily unsure of position) which could lead to a state of emergency. The service may also be available for practices

Reassuring to know so many armchairs and MS sims are flown with the correct verbiage.
Well done DL crew.

"appropriate"?
I disagree.

It is mandatory.

Trust PPRuNe to get so excited over minutia such as phraseology which isn't standard where that crew come from during one of the more critical experiences the guys will face in their careers. They were also slightly rushed into the R/T by the transfer to radar pretty much at the moment the thing blew an engine.

They've had an engine fail at a critical phase of flight (and not your standard simulator V1 cut at that) and as far as I can see externally have flown the aircraft well (cue someone pointing out the slight downwind drift :rolleyes:) and made the appropriate decision to return expeditiously - they got the exact same response and service they've have got if they said the standard Mayday x 3 call.

Good job to them I say. :ok: Especially given it's Delta, so probably all done with quite the hangover. :E

It would be interesting to know what phraseology they used in the cockpit of that flight - that didn't transmit on the RT. :oh:

"*^%$%^&*(!!"

You have misunderstood my post, I heard what the crew said in their acknowledgment to the controller, it’s correct they referred to themselves as an emergency aircraft

My point was they didn’t get the chance to call Mayday as the controller called them first

No it's not, the world over would call "PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN PAN, Tower, Delta XXX Engine Failure, Maintaining Runway Track, standby for further information". Done in the sim x 3 every 6 months. What do you guys do??

The point is it doesn't matter what the controller says, you then immediately call Mayday (or Pan). ATC can then decide what to do with you; stay on Tower or go to Dep.

Mayday is a code word to get attention fast. What is the point to call for attention when the tower sees and knows what has happened already?

Thought the tower would have said "You are trailing smoke from right engine."

An internationally agreed term provides consistency in communication.
Calling (when able) cost nothing, but can avoid complacency or assumption about seeing or knowing - for either party in the communication.

We judge with hindsight, biased by outcome - success; but the important lessons are in the process, that communications can breakdown, mislead, misunderstood. The safety value is identifying the difference between 'good enough' and the striven for 'excellence' in our profession.

Well, it is clear that the tower did not know what had happened. There is certainly zero indication that TC saw it or realised the gravity of the situation. Do you really think they'd just say "Delta 79 contact radar goodbye" if they knew the aircraft had just suffered a major malfunction? More likely ATC were not even looking at the 767 as it climbed out and didn't see what was obviously an abnormal event.

Where's that definition?? :rolleyes:

I knew this would be the focal point of the discussion on pprune as soon as I heard the first part of the video. Pan or mayday is emphasized where I work (U.S. based carrier with a fleet of 100+ widebodies). Additionally it was recently added to the US / FAA aeronautical information manual publication as being the the appropriate phraseology.

As it is, many of the US long haul pilots are 60+ years old and quite set in their ways. I teach in the sim and trying to impart the need for this phraseology to my senior counterparts as a mere 50 year old youngster in a diplomatic way is a real struggle. When they are fighting a V1 cut they tend not to care and view any critique of r/t during debrief as nitpicking and minutia. I do my best, but the odds of this coming out of the transmitter properly, especially from the left seat are slim. Law of primacy and all, under stress they’re going to do things they way they were first learned.

Law of primacy and all, under stress they’re going to do things they way they were first learned.
Yes, of course, that may be so... BUT these people are not operating in a vacuum - the younger less experienced watch, listen and observe ,,, then copy ! and so it goes on.
From observation, It would seem that there is some sort of 'macho' induced reluctance, among (particularly) US pilots to declare an emergency (other than 'bullying' ATC into giving them a preferred runway ! !) What tends to be missed from these discussions are the procedures (external to the aircraft) which are activated by the 'Mayday' or 'Pan' declaration - in particular the priority radar indication which makes inter-control coordination so much more simple. The correct procedure is simple ... not using it can lead to unnecessary problems ... and worse ! :ugh:

One of the safety recommendations following the Tenerife disaster was:

Quite a shame that part of our industry hasn't adopted standardised R/T in a case of an emergency nearly half a century later, despite the countless opportunities to practice it in a simulator every 6 months.

Even with comm failure I believe the results would have been about the same with this crew...Hard to argue with success...:)

Nonsensical statement. There's been no argument that the crew didn't do their job handling the emergency. That was never the issue. The issue is that using non-standard phraseology in countries where controllers' mother tonque is not English carries the potential for misunderstandings. Hence the need to abide by standard ICAO phraseology. It doesn't detract from a good job done by the crew. The words MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY will immediately put ATC on alert.

Excellent handling by everyone , no question , now the R/T question of course. Using non ICAO standard phraseology has caused so many incidents and accidents over the last decades, so why the resistance to accept it ? I fail to understand what some of the best trained and best paid pilots , like now here the Delta ones , still do not get this basic safety rule. . We all in the rest of the world have to get tested for English minimum level 4 and get refreshers on using the correct phraseology, while some pilots get automatically level 6 without even having to do a test. Especially those pilots should set the example, but in fact they are often the worst. All the US incidents we have been debating in the other forum recently have all one thing in common : confusing non standard phraseology.

Wannabees galore
 

Bernoulli, Magellan,Marconi (nee Tesla). Aviate, navigate, communicate. (Yes, in scripted AQP one expects a quick, accurate Pan declaration and description of the engine failure procedure routing to inform ATC of which tin to push).

Law of primacy- ATC handed off to departure having not seen the black smoke trail of #2. No shock when US parlance, not ICAO phrases squirt out.

Exactly when Marconi/Tesla were third place runners after Beurnoulli and Magellan- one gets a pass.


I teach part 121 and grew up Intl ICAO- sure, debrief the Pan R/T- but no one that has been there give **** #1 if the context was conveyed.

Not even the CAAC would assign a point against the operator's certificate on this one

A mayday is not necessary if there are no additional issues. A triple pan is sufficient. If that isn't understood by ATC then a mayday would do the trick. From what could be seen and heard on the video, it looked well handled to me and I particularly liked the way they planted it on the runway!

Words mean things, and "should" does not mean must or shall...

The French pilot understood it was an emergency and asked about vacating the runway.

The pilot explained what the emergency was faster than he could have said "mayday, mayday, mayday." And everyone was safely on the ground a few minutes later. What did he do wrong?

The pilot explained what the emergency was faster than he could have said "mayday, mayday, mayday." And everyone was safely on the ground a few minutes later. What did he do wrong?

...and they still don't get it !
Are these people so self-centred and unaware of the variation in operating conditions that they feel no need to accommodate them ? Let's just slob around with R/T based on "Hi Joe, mebbe got a bummer heah !", or some individual variation thereof ... I expect everyone involved will (eventually) work out what is meant ! While the United States may well have a preponderance of aviation in all its forms, operating outside their own little bubble requires INTERNATIONAL understanding and cooperation. :ugh:

The terminology is not strictly relevant here, but that (in bold), would be 10 syllables, whereas "MAYDAY x3" is just 6 syllables, and everybody - ATC, and all the other airborne aircraft instantly recognise the word and understand what it means, and will react accordingly. So it is very simple, very clear, and gets immediate attention and assistance. It is also much quicker to say, allowing the aircrew to get back to concentrating on the cockpit emergency. Surely much simpler and easier to use it ?

Yes, and I agree; an emergency well handled, but then you went and spoilt it by implying that the crew might have been flying after drinking too much...... :bored: :confused:

Works every time until it doesn't.

How many "declaring an emergency" calls did it take for those 737-200 guys in Hawaii a while ago for (native-speaking) ATC and other traffic to get the message?

The end does not justifies the means in our business . It is not because there was a successful outcome that it justifies everything like by passing basic rules such as not using standard phraseology .

For info Mayday 3x is much more than “ declaring emergency” it implies immediate assistance , priority and radio silence from everyone else on the same frequency, also to avoid cross transmissions .
It goes back to basic training .

as to the “ should “ in ICAO docs , i hope you know how to read PANS OPS and not part of this group of pilots that read “ Resolution Advisory” as just an advice . Quite a lot still out there unfortunately .