PAN or MAYDAY
 

I saw a poll on the Pilot magazine website yesterday asking whether or not pilots, whatever their licence, had had to make a Pan or Mayday call.

Just wondered how many PPruner's have had to.

bow5 :)

1 Mayday - tyre burst on a VC10 causing double engine failure, massive fuel leak (lost it all out of the port wing tank), ruptured pressure hull and loss of 1 hydraulic system. Oh yes, and it was dark and raining.

Safe landing at Brize Norton, no-one hurt and very impressed by the controller at London Control who let us route direct across all the airways - thanks mate, whoever you are.

1 Pan - smoke in the cabin during Atlantic crossing due to cabin conditioning compressor failure (VC10 again). Diverted into Shannon, lots of help from the folks there too.

1 Mayday due severe loss of engine power at following an EFATO one day.

1 Pan due to electrical failure and just making sure before the radio died that my predicament was appreciated.

Not much for 1800hrs of mostly very short flights.

You're 1,800 times more likely to have an accident taxiing than you are to have an engine failure in a single engined aircraft you know.

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And now moved to Aircrew Notices.

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10,000 hours - one Mayday. Fuel icing due
to contaminated gas just north of Porto
Santo. ATC took several minutes to react to
a distress call and were not particuarly helpful - it was some years ago. Since then
I am always made a mental note to put out a
MAYDAY call or as the colonials would say
'declare an emergency'. If I then wish to
downgrade the situation to a lesser state I
will do so.

Perhaps those fine chaps in ATC could confirm
how widely accepted around the world is the
call of PAN ?

beamer: you raised a good point about us 'colonials' saying "we are declaring an emergency" versus "Mayday". I really don't know how this started and why we such have a hard time declaring "Mayday". I was taught that declaring a mayday meant that if you did not receive immediately help you were going to crash or that you were crashing and ATC needed to notify the ASR folks. Anything less than that, one just said "I am declaring an Emergency at this time." Meaning I require priority handling and a clear runway wherever I can land.

"PAN PAN" I understood to mean that, 'I have a problem, I don't know how bad it is, I will let you know but please keep an eye on us." In my thinking (which certainly can be flawed) I am notifying ATC that my problem is not yet serious, that we might be able to fix the problem or we may have to 'declare an emergency' later.

In thinking about this I have come up with some thoughts of why we have this problem, if it is really a problem. Machismo, don't want to sound like the little boy crying wolf, in other words, we are so tough we can handle anything. There is flight instructor where I take recurrency training that has a great saying about being too brave in an airplane, " If you're going to be stupid you better be real tough, because sooner or later you're going to hurt yourself real bad and you got to be able to handle the pain!"

I have flown with some pilots that will not declare an emergency damn near no matter what is wrong. They seem to think it is a challenge to their manhood to admit there is something they can't handle, probably get this from Hollywood. Once back when I was a FO on the 72 I had a captain that did not want the crash equipment rolled out when we had an un-safe gear indication on one of the main gear (I can't remember which gear now). The tower controller had the equipment come out anyway. Oh yeah, we had around 180 paxs on board. Another excuse is "Oh, I don't want to have to fill out a lot of paperwork if I declare an emergency." By the way, here in the U.S. you don't have to fill out any paperwork for declaring an emergency unless you do have an incident or accident or if ATC has to move a lot of aircraft out of your way and need a reason for their own paperwork.

Anyway good question and as someone said earlier we need to get some ATCOs into this.

As a London-based area controller, I really like to hear the words "Pan" or "Mayday" if you have a problem. Its use serves various purposes -

1. it is an unambiguous "attention getter" to ATC,
2. it SHOULD alert other pilots to the situation and allow free R/T time to deal with the situation,
3. other agencies who need to be informed easily understand the phraseology.

There has been an AIC out for some time now in the UK explaining the background behind the apparently pedantic questioning that we sometimes use when the "magic word" has not been used. Some years ago there was the suspicion that one or two airlines operating into the UK were using the presence of a "sick passenger" or "shortage of fuel" to shortcut the delay at busy times. Whether or not those allegations were well-founded, I cannot say, but the AIC clearly states that the UK does NOT recognise the words "Fuel Emergency" and will NOT give priority to any aircraft that will not declare a Pan or Mayday (or use words that leave no doubt that is what is intended). Similarly, the term "medical emergency" will not, by itself, lead to an accelerated landing slot.

Whilst this may sound harsh and uncaring, it has been decided that this is the best policy. So, if you have a real problem, use the words "Pan" or "Mayday" as appropriate - it can always be upgraded or downgraded if circumstances alter. Otherwise, expect the apparently time-wasting and pointless question "Do you wish to declare a Pan/Mayday?" or similar words.

Incidentally, we have to fill in a CA1261 occurence form each time either a Pan or Mayday is declared, but that is just NATS policy. As far as I understand things, the pilot will not have to fill out CAA paperwork merely for using the words - only if the occurence leading to their use requires such paperwork.

Fly safe.

NN

totally agree numpo - and to further add, I understand 'MayDay' to mean problem directly affecting the aircraft, and 'Pan' meaning urgency required but doesnt affect the state of the aircraft. So when the oceanic boys declare a Pan due to fuel problems, it gets a little confusing. On both declarations though, at London expect priority handling and normally a descrete freq so we can waffle on a bit to get full details to be sure we are helping the most we can. We are trained and checked out every year on Emergencies and try to keep the pilot bother to a minimum but obtain everything. Whatever you want, just ask for it, the book generally goes out the window in the event of safety issues. A quick call to the mil/D&D cell, and the selection of 7700 normally does the trick.

Safe flying, hope I never hear you say those words. 5miles.

PS if you start with Mayday or Pan, we have loud speakers that we turn on so everyone around knows whats going on, plus two or three ears are better than one controller going, 'oh crap, sorry who was that, say that again'. Another 'less bother' policy.

Three Maydays, two within the Paris FIR. One response was "say again", the other was "say again", but after several routine calls to other aircraft. Within Europe, my advice is that, unless you are working within UK airspace, any problem deserving of a "pan" call, should be a mayday. Get the call out, get the controller's attention, get the assistance you want. You can always downgrade later. As regards the inevitable paperwork, would you rather be filling it in sitting over a stiff drink, or wishing you could be filling it in, sitting in a smoking heap?

May it never happen

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The future's yellow; powered by purple!

As an ATC point,
Yonks ago at Brum A "National Carrier" Ba111 landed without a "landing clearance".
When tower [sarcastically] said you WERE cleared to land, we got the reply "We had an engine failure at 4 miles"!!!!!
The mind boggles http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif
we aim to please, keeps the cleaners happy

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chiglet

Yesterday morning an A300 made a MAYDAY call moments after getting airborne with an engine fire out of Johannesburg. He was still on tower freq. Like Numpo-Nigit says, it had the desired affect – everybody else shut up, and waited until the emergency was sorted out. The only voices on the radio were those of the controller, A300 crew and aircraft that were being "moved" out of the way.

After only 100 hours into my turboprop - got SEVERE vibration. Couldn't read any instruments until we slowed and descended.
Asked atc if we could divert to nearby airfield and they enquired if it was a Mayday. The Captain was reluctant to use the 'word' and so this led me to not say it- seems daft thinking about it now, but we live and learn (or do we?)
Atc were excellent - i didn't manage to complete any one task and dropped the plates and my pen on the floor! It would have helped if the Captain had stopped bombarding me with instructions every 15 seconds though!
I have had two incidents since of Pan level(?). One was loss of Altimeter on takeoff - came straight back in, another was loss of a Generator and inverter - continued to destination.On both occassions Captain did not declare but stated the actual problem to atc - 'we have lost P1 altimeter'
I would like to know what level is an incapacitation - our aircraft does not have autopilot so a pilot slumped on the controls could ruin your day !

Dont know if this thread was for ATCers to reply but 3 maydays,5 pans and a Hijack. All ended succesfully apart from my sphincter muscle occasionally going into spasm at the thought!!!!