US Pilots Reluctant To Use Mayday in Emergencies
 

The Alaskan 737 door blowout once again highlights the reluctance of some US pilots to use the standard ICAO phrase Mayday when declaring an emergency.

Listening to the conversation with ATC there appeared confusion with the initial situation because of the lack of standard ICAO phraseology.


The FedEx emergency below demonstrates what appears to be a widespread problem with many Americans pilots.At no point did the crew call Mayday.

The ATC audio starts around 45 seconds in.


The regulations are quite clear .
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publ...section_3.html

My observation too.
 

I'm wondering the same thing. Is it not in the FAA standard phraseology for RT comms? Mayday x 3 at the start of an emergency call not the procedure/requirement for emergency situations for FAA training/exams?
The link given says "..... aircraft in distress should begin with the signal MAYDAY"
So the pilots see that it says "should", not shall or are required?
I have also observed that often the same ATC controller will after a bit, ask the pilot to confirm POB, FOB, etc, again, which was just given the same controller and acknowledged earlier. Is it SOP for ATC to get the pilot to repeat these details? It seems annoying and distracting to ask for these details that were already stated and acknowledged as the cockpit workload is very high and stressful. Also note that when handed over to another sector controller they often ask for the same info given on the earlier ATC frequency. Does ATC during handover not pass on whether it's an emergency and other info? Or do they need to ask this again?

Whatever…
The Pilot Communicating declared an emergency. The flight got what they needed without trouble, and the Europeans got to throw spitballs. Seems like a win-win-win…

421dog, It is not a question of the USA vv Europe, but a question of the USA vv the rest of thw world.

And WannabeBus, If the ATC questions about FOB and POB are becoming distracting all the pilot has to say is, "STANDBY" Captains need to take command of the situation, all too often they don't.

I am not saying the crew of the Alaska flight did anything wrong, they seem to have handled the emergency very well, as did ATC, and the result, despite the door coming off, was a sucessfull landing.

So what else did you want to have someone say? It sounded like a young first officer did a very competent job of asking and getting what she needed. The door blew out at 16k or so, so nobody was gonna die on the way down, and, looking at the track of the flight, the pilots were letting the computer follow the magenta line.
A high dollar, but not a super dangerous situation.

I agree the F/O handled the emergency very well, as did ATC. I am only pointing out the relevance of the international rules. And, I would add, the only time I have had an emergency in the US (a long time ago), ATC couldn't have been more helpful

Well, given the fact that (with respect to Santos Dumont {and my Carioca Wife who insists that he beat the Wright Brothers} we invented aviation, and have more ops daily than the rest of the world combined), we’ll be happy to accommodate you, right after we get over the hump of converting the definition of “NOTAM”…

Touché, monsieur!!

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publ...0same%20manner.

During my time I had to declare "Mayday" three times. Two of those were in French airspace, going into CDG. After about three conversations in French between ATC and French aircraft, the reply to me was "XXX, say again"

Lets hope this doesn’t develop in to a slanging match between USA pilots and the rest of the world.

Mayday' originates from the French phrase 'm'aidez' which means 'help me'. It was first adopted as a distress signal for aviation in the early 1920s. The credit for its implementation goes to Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio officer at London's Croydon Airport.

It is standard ICAO phraseology across the globe.

Here is how we are required to do it on this side of the pond.Textbook radio calls and everyone aware without unnecessary chatter.

Top marks to the guys on the radio.

I don’t get it, twice in my life I’ve had to declare a pan, the person at the other end instantly knew I was in trouble, but it could be dealt with.

I’ve always thought of Mayday being a word which means “I’m in real trouble I’m going to have to do whatever I like for a bit, I expect you to facilitate that”.

Was this a Mayday situation anyway?

I suppose at the time they didn’t know it was a door plug and not structurally significant.

I’d probably have used the M word and debated that afterwards.

Time to give this a rest, pilots from non U.S. countries are not immune from using non standard phraseology themselves

This Alaska crew handled the emergency well and landed safely

End of problem

I wasn’t having a go at the Alaskan pilots and agree they did an excellent job.

My argument is why bother with standard phraseology when no one bothers. Fly low level across Europe and Asia and you’ll understand what I mean. Spanish controllers in Latin America are a good example of failure to adhere to the rules.

Standard phraseology will be understood by all. Strangely, a lot of the traffic in the US is from countries that do stick to the rules. If I hear Mayday, I’ll shut up. If I hear what may appear to be a normal transmission, I may carry on as normal and inadvertently get in the way.

There are many things in SOPs and aviation rules that could be improved, but they should be followed, because …… they are the rules. If I decide things are better my way, even if I do a great job, I’m wrong.

Me

My only add to this is that Pilots need to understand that when they declare an emergency they are not only telling ATC, but every other aircraft on that frequency. In a lot of airspace there are pilots for whom English is not their first language, even in the USA, and the use of MAYDAY helps alert all the other aircraft to their situation.

It ain’t the other aircraft’s problem. ATC deals with it well over here on a single-tier basis. If an EMP event occurs, all of us are gonna be spouting PanPan or Mayday to no avail…

when the system goes down, the people over here have shown themselves to be remarkably resilient at not running into each other in dense airspace.

I think there is nothing else that can be said at the beginning of a radio transmission other than "MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY", which will immediately silence everyone and make them pay extreme attention to what's being said next. I think this is the most important strength of using that phrase. Not only ATC but also everyone else will immediately understand what's going on.

Real life communications of US emergencies go like: "Uhh center this is American 123, we're out of Dulles through 6 climbing on to 10 and we need to stop our climb at this point, we are declaring an emergency due to smoke in the cabin and... uh... we'll request to return to Dulles after we run some checks first, can we take up the hold here over the VOR at 10?", in a very calm and standard way. Anyone else hearing this in the background won't pick up that they just declared an emergency because it's embedded within the transmission as another piece of "normal" information. It seems routine.

Of course it's the "other aircrafts problem". If I'm expecting to land at an airport and someone has just declared a MAYDAY I can at least expect my landing to be delayed, if not a diversion to an alternate. My situational awareness has just been greatly improved by knowing that there's an aircraft out there in trouble. I also know to shut up and await instructions.