6 ms·

You can hear the air/ground communications for this flight here via LiveATC.net. The pilots declare an emergency and then a mayday call beginning at 1:15 of the

You can hear the air/ground communications for this flight here via LiveATC.net. The pilots declare an emergency and then a mayday call beginning at 1:15 of the audio. https://forums.liveatc.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=16129.0;attach=10823 https://forums.liveatc.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1...

hnburnsy 6y ago
EMERGENCY- A distress or an urgency condition. DISTRESS (MAYDAY)- A condition of being threatened by serious and/or imminent danger and of requiring immediate assistance. URGENCY (PAN-PAN)- A condition of being concerned about safety and of requiring timely but not immediate assistance; a potential distress condition.
- willyt 6y ago
  “Declaring an emergency” is US specific. The rest of the world doesn’t recognise this phrase you have to use either “Mayday” for immediate danger to life or “Pan Pan” for less severe problems. As I understand it, “Declaring an emergency” is the equivalent of a Mayday and the US is very slowly switching away from this non standard phraseology.
  - tjohns 6y ago
    "Declaring an emergency" isn't even correct in the US. The FAR/AIM only lists "mayday" and "pan pan". (Yes, it's oddly common here in the US for some reason. I think some pilots are afraid to say the "m" word.) That said, controllers are human. As long as you get the message across somehow they'll do everything they can to help, even with non-standard phraseology. Of course, the risk of non-standard phraseology is that you might be misunderstood - especially in countries where English isn't the primary language. It's still good to stick to standard ICAO phraseology whenever possible.
    - willyt 6y ago
      For sure, I think in an English speaking country you would probably get your point across. They would most likely come back with asking for confirmation that you are declaring 'mayday', but you would probably cause varying degrees of confusion in many other countries. I suppose the aim is to make it absolutely clear as quickly as possible that you want ATC to press the big red button labeled 'crash' which sets off the alarms in the airport fire station and causes other controllers to start diverting flights away and telling planes on approach to go around. These two podcast episodes about the last major crash at Heathrow are pretty interesting if you want to know what happens in ATC during something like this. The fire appliances were already en route before the plane hit the ground. http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-1/ http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-... http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-2/ http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-...
xvf22 6y ago
You can hear the fire alert going off before the mayday. The fact that they requested a left turn at first it meant the controller knew the right engine was out and they'd need left turns to come in. Always find the level of training impressive and I'm glad they made it back safely. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate
- msandford 6y ago
  I don't follow how the right engine being out means left turns. Seems like you'd have extra thrust on the left side and you'd want to make right turns. They wanted to keep the right engine high? I'm not sure what I missed.
  - xvf22 6y ago
    When turning into the dead engine, there’s a tendency to overbank as the plane will yaw towards the inoperative engine.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - waiseristy 6y ago
    That's exactly the problem, turning too heavily into the side of the dead engine can introduce a situation where it's impossible to pull out of that turn.
  - danaliv 6y ago
    Turning into the live engine is more controllable. When you turn toward the dead engine, the tendency is to turn more. You can do it, but it’s not as stable.
- pixl97 6y ago
  Can't wait for the synopsis on the Blancoliro YT channel.
jakear 6y ago
Curious, I had always heard it should be repeated 3 times, but here they’re consistently repeating just twice.
- danaliv 6y ago
  You’ll find that there’s a gap between what the books say about ATC comms and how things are actually done. No one is being pedantic in an emergency.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TangoFox 6y ago
    If anyone is curious about what the books say, US Air Traffic Controllers use phraseology prescribed by FAA General Order 7110.65. Also known as the 7110 or the point sixty-five, it includes rules that Air Traffic Controllers must follow to ensure safe and effective operations. So if you're a pilot and are wondering why you have a Hold For Release or are told "unable", you might find the reason in this document. The Wikipedia article [0] links the PDF version as well as the online version. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA_Order_7110.65 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA_Order_7110.65
    - danaliv 6y ago
      Happy to see a controller here. Thanks for all the clearances. :)
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  3 times is just to "ensure" it gets heard.
- willyt 6y ago
  It’s slightly different for marine radio, where it follows the MIRPDANIO mnemonic you might be thinking of that?
tialaramex 6y ago
"Mayday" is the internationally agreed code, so that's one reason to use that - but US accident investigators also noticed a pattern that American pilots are often too reluctant to declare emergency status when it's appropriate as it is here, because they feel it's "not that bad" yet. Having them say it's an emergency without saying "Mayday" is good enough and might mean a few more cases that should have been emergencies are declared as such. I might look for the link later, but there's an incident with a Youtube reconstruction where a private pilot is nearly out of fuel, the weather is poor, and he's approaching a USAF base en route to his last hope landing site. Airbases are military facilities, closed to civilian traffic. He asks the controller if he can land there. She says he can't... unless it's an emergency. He should say "Yes, this is an emergency, I'm on fumes here and the weather is much worse than I expected". She'd turn on the airfield's powerful landing lights, and maybe he'd spend the evening explaining his screw up and apologising to a base commander or at worst spend the night in a cell. Nobody dies. Instead he pressed on, and his dire situation only became clear to her when it was too late and he was already doomed.
- lisper 6y ago
  Listening to the audio, the pilot first says, "We've experienced an engine failure, need a turn." ATC does not respond, so he calls again and says "Mayday" in order to unequivocally get their attention. There are actually two different emergency calls. There is "mayday", and there is "pan-pan", which is a less urgent version of "mayday", but that is hardly ever used.
  - kps 6y ago
    ‘Panne’ is French for ‘breakdown’. (Like ‘m'aider’ is French for ‘help me’.)
  - hugh-avherald 6y ago
    PAN-PAN is used more often than you might think, at least outside the US. In particular, any medical emergency would be a PAN-PAN. Here's an interesting example where two aircraft had declared PAN-PAN for quite different reasons, while coming into Sydney. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfidHywKmZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfidHywKmZI

hnburnsy 6y ago

EMERGENCY- A distress or an urgency condition. DISTRESS (MAYDAY)- A condition of being threatened by serious and/or imminent danger and of requiring immediate assistance. URGENCY (PAN-PAN)- A condition of being concerned about safety and of requiring timely but not immediate assistance; a potential distress condition.

willyt 6y ago
“Declaring an emergency” is US specific. The rest of the world doesn’t recognise this phrase you have to use either “Mayday” for immediate danger to life or “Pan Pan” for less severe problems. As I understand it, “Declaring an emergency” is the equivalent of a Mayday and the US is very slowly switching away from this non standard phraseology.
- tjohns 6y ago
  "Declaring an emergency" isn't even correct in the US. The FAR/AIM only lists "mayday" and "pan pan". (Yes, it's oddly common here in the US for some reason. I think some pilots are afraid to say the "m" word.) That said, controllers are human. As long as you get the message across somehow they'll do everything they can to help, even with non-standard phraseology. Of course, the risk of non-standard phraseology is that you might be misunderstood - especially in countries where English isn't the primary language. It's still good to stick to standard ICAO phraseology whenever possible.
  - willyt 6y ago
    For sure, I think in an English speaking country you would probably get your point across. They would most likely come back with asking for confirmation that you are declaring 'mayday', but you would probably cause varying degrees of confusion in many other countries. I suppose the aim is to make it absolutely clear as quickly as possible that you want ATC to press the big red button labeled 'crash' which sets off the alarms in the airport fire station and causes other controllers to start diverting flights away and telling planes on approach to go around. These two podcast episodes about the last major crash at Heathrow are pretty interesting if you want to know what happens in ATC during something like this. The fire appliances were already en route before the plane hit the ground. http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-1/ http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-... http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-2/ http://airlinepilotguy.com/adam-spink-and-speedbird-38-part-...

xvf22 6y ago

You can hear the fire alert going off before the mayday. The fact that they requested a left turn at first it meant the controller knew the right engine was out and they'd need left turns to come in. Always find the level of training impressive and I'm glad they made it back safely. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate

msandford 6y ago
I don't follow how the right engine being out means left turns. Seems like you'd have extra thrust on the left side and you'd want to make right turns. They wanted to keep the right engine high? I'm not sure what I missed.
- xvf22 6y ago
  When turning into the dead engine, there’s a tendency to overbank as the plane will yaw towards the inoperative engine.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- waiseristy 6y ago
  That's exactly the problem, turning too heavily into the side of the dead engine can introduce a situation where it's impossible to pull out of that turn.
- danaliv 6y ago
  Turning into the live engine is more controllable. When you turn toward the dead engine, the tendency is to turn more. You can do it, but it’s not as stable.
pixl97 6y ago
Can't wait for the synopsis on the Blancoliro YT channel.

jakear 6y ago

Curious, I had always heard it should be repeated 3 times, but here they’re consistently repeating just twice.

danaliv 6y ago
You’ll find that there’s a gap between what the books say about ATC comms and how things are actually done. No one is being pedantic in an emergency.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TangoFox 6y ago
  If anyone is curious about what the books say, US Air Traffic Controllers use phraseology prescribed by FAA General Order 7110.65. Also known as the 7110 or the point sixty-five, it includes rules that Air Traffic Controllers must follow to ensure safe and effective operations. So if you're a pilot and are wondering why you have a Hold For Release or are told "unable", you might find the reason in this document. The Wikipedia article [0] links the PDF version as well as the online version. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA_Order_7110.65 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAA_Order_7110.65
  - danaliv 6y ago
    Happy to see a controller here. Thanks for all the clearances. :)
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
3 times is just to "ensure" it gets heard.
willyt 6y ago
It’s slightly different for marine radio, where it follows the MIRPDANIO mnemonic you might be thinking of that?

tialaramex 6y ago

"Mayday" is the internationally agreed code, so that's one reason to use that - but US accident investigators also noticed a pattern that American pilots are often too reluctant to declare emergency status when it's appropriate as it is here, because they feel it's "not that bad" yet. Having them say it's an emergency without saying "Mayday" is good enough and might mean a few more cases that should have been emergencies are declared as such. I might look for the link later, but there's an incident with a Youtube reconstruction where a private pilot is nearly out of fuel, the weather is poor, and he's approaching a USAF base en route to his last hope landing site. Airbases are military facilities, closed to civilian traffic. He asks the controller if he can land there. She says he can't... unless it's an emergency. He should say "Yes, this is an emergency, I'm on fumes here and the weather is much worse than I expected". She'd turn on the airfield's powerful landing lights, and maybe he'd spend the evening explaining his screw up and apologising to a base commander or at worst spend the night in a cell. Nobody dies. Instead he pressed on, and his dire situation only became clear to her when it was too late and he was already doomed.

lisper 6y ago
Listening to the audio, the pilot first says, "We've experienced an engine failure, need a turn." ATC does not respond, so he calls again and says "Mayday" in order to unequivocally get their attention. There are actually two different emergency calls. There is "mayday", and there is "pan-pan", which is a less urgent version of "mayday", but that is hardly ever used.
- kps 6y ago
  ‘Panne’ is French for ‘breakdown’. (Like ‘m'aider’ is French for ‘help me’.)
- hugh-avherald 6y ago
  PAN-PAN is used more often than you might think, at least outside the US. In particular, any medical emergency would be a PAN-PAN. Here's an interesting example where two aircraft had declared PAN-PAN for quite different reasons, while coming into Sydney. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfidHywKmZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfidHywKmZI