Declare an Emergency! Please...

Hacker15e said:
Yes, hopefully someday I'll learn what it's like to handle an emergency single pilot.

Where did I say that a "call for help" should be met with "silence on the other side"? All I meant was that a call of "emergency" from an aircraft should carry the understanding that ATC is there to help, and that implication the pilot will pass on the information ATC wants when they get a chance. No need to waste the pilot's brain bytes by calling him, distracting him from handling the emergency, and forcing him to tell you to 'stand by'.

FWIW, my post was mostly just in jest anyway.
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I'll still disagree with the sentiment.

Maybe you're starting from the viewpoint of a trained crew that may only be interested in declaring an emergency as a way of explaining why you may go off altitude, off course, or otherwise maneuver in an unexpected way. Don't need no damn help!

But for a lot of pilots, non-pilots, ATC folks, police, 911 dispatcher, etcs "This is an emergency" is an invitation for help, not silence while you fly into a mountaintop while working it out.

Hmm.. that reminds me. Haven't there been a couple of well-publicized crashes involving well-trained pilots in multi-pilot crews while they were just working things out?
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
the viewpoint of a trained crew that may only be interested in declaring an emergency as a way of explaining why you may go off altitude, off course, or otherwise maneuver in an unexpected way. Don't need no damn help!
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In general, yes...except for the "crew" part. I come from 12 years of single-pilot operations in pointy-nosed fast moving jets (hence my sarcastic comment above about handling emergencies single pilot, which you mentioned in your post).

I'm actually pretty familiar with having to make crucial and time-sensitive decisions in a fast-moving environment, and having to communicate those decisions to other "crew" members who are generally located in other aircraft operating in formation with me. I'm perfectly aware of "good" CRM and "bad" CRM, and that it has a lot to do with making sure the right information is passed at the right time. My point to the (tongue-in-cheek snarky) post was that ATC is sometimes not aware of what those good and bad times are, and that directly following the "emergency" call is not, in my opinion, the time to pass non-critical information.

I generally declare an emergency with ATC because I need:

- Deviation from my flight plan
- Traffic priority
- Crash/fire/rescue service when I land

Of note is all of that stuff ATC asks for -- souls, nature of emergency, fuel, etc -- are generally helpful for that last one, but totally unnecessary for the first two.

MidlifeFlyer said:
Hmm.. that reminds me. Haven't there been a couple of well-publicized crashes involving well-trained pilots in multi-pilot crews while they were just working things out?
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Which of those were the ones that would have been averted if the pilots has simply answered ATC's questions?

That's not to say that ATC doesn't provide assistance -- of course they can, and sometimes they have provided very crucial assistance. I'm thinking of accidents like the UPS crash over in Dubai where the pilots have no navigation reference, can't help themselves, and need that assistance.

What we're talking about here is when, and under what circumstances, can ATC be acutely helpful. My comment -- again, mostly in jest as an answer to the plea made by the OP -- generally meant that when handling an emergency (at least from my experience), when I say the E-word over the radio, I'm usually busy handling the emergency and don't have time to answer ATC's questions that aren't really that time sensitive. Yes, it can be solved with a "standby"...but that requires a radio call that is heard (possibly interrupting other audible information, or other intra-cockpit comm) and must be responded to (potentially causing the same interruptions).

My thought was something along the lines of a shared understanding between pilots and controllers that, at the precise time of saying "Emergency!" there is an implied second transmission that is something along the lines of, 'yeah, I know you want some more info ATC, you don't have to remind me, and I'll gladly pass it along when it fits in with my workload.'

Regardless, my original post was simply a snarky comment, not a serious disagreement.
 
The military single seat fighter perspective may also be a little unique. If something goes wrong out there, I am probably more in danger of having too much help vice too little. Flight lead, other members of flight, base/ODO, on top of any assistance from ATC. There is a moment in time where the single seat guy just needs to punch the clock, take a breath, analyze and formulate a plan before every Tom, Dick, and Sally starts jumping into your cockpit. I will get the E word out there ASAP if I need to, but this is probably going to be right in the middle of trying to get things pointed in the right direction. Anyway, point being that for a lot of civilian operators, ATC is the only other person out there to help aside from fellow crewmembers/passengers/pilots, and they might be a lot more eager to get comms going along that avenue.
 
Bumblebee said:
I will say that at SkyWest, if you handle an emergency, you will get a line check. Instead of a letter of appreciation, you get a line check. I am so glad I don't work for them any longer.
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For serious?

I've declared once, landed at a military field, and it really wasn't a big deal. Minimal paperwork.

EDIT: Being an Air Force base, it was actually less paperwork than if we had prior permission.
 
Douglas said:
"Pan-Pan"
I've never used it but I'll admit that there have been times that I should have. "Oh...I'd like to return to the airport."

Funny thing is that I've sat there thinking before calling ATC, "should I say pan-pan? I've never heard anybody use pan-pan. Would he know what I'm talking about?"

I think I've just resolved to use "pan-pan" next time.
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I've always equated using pan-pan or Mayday when just broadcasting in the blind on guard. Not to say that it isn't appropriate when you're already on frequency, and may be very useful on a congested frequency just because it will get the attention of everyone on the frequency and may get other pilots to shut up long enough to allow us to handle the emergency. I've worked a few, and it is amazing how many pilots, who have been on frequency for a few minutes before the emergency was declared, sit there and try to make mundane requests after someone has come onto the frequency and declared.

Even if you're not requesting any specific assistance from ATC and you don't want us asking a dozen questions, it at least sets a chain of events into motion that may make the difference in between life and death if the emergency results in a forced landing (or worse) somewhere.
 
///AMG said:
The military single seat fighter perspective may also be a little unique. If something goes wrong out there, I am probably more in danger of having too much help vice too little. Flight lead, other members of flight, base/ODO, on top of any assistance from ATC. There is a moment in time where the single seat guy just needs to punch the clock, take a breath, analyze and formulate a plan before every Tom, Dick, and Sally starts jumping into your cockpit. I will get the E word out there ASAP if I need to, but this is probably going to be right in the middle of trying to get things pointed in the right direction. Anyway, point being that for a lot of civilian operators, ATC is the only other person out there to help aside from fellow crewmembers/passengers/pilots, and they might be a lot more eager to get comms going along that avenue.
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It depends how you brief your flight (that is, if you were actually a section lead :D). But generally speaking, in a section/2-ship, if there's an emergency, that aircraft gets the lead; exceptions being NORDO or some other minor thing where flying the wing won't be a problem. Otherwise, the emergency plane gets the lead so he only has to worry about himself. Additionally, he takes care of his jet, checklists, etc. Since he's now heads-down handling a problem, the last thing you want is dash-2 reading a checklist for him and both people in a formation are heads down. Dash 2's main responsibility is to be lead's "attitude indicator", and insure he's going where he needs to and not rolling inverted while handling an emergency heads-in the cockpit, and otherwise monitor the emergency aircraft, in addition to all other normal wingman formation roles. Unless otherwise asked for by the emergency aircraft, that'll be the main job of the chase aircraft. So you shouldn't (again, depending how its briefed) have too much help from your other aircraft in formation, as they should know their role in not being a pest.
 
there are a lot of situations we have where we have to divert/return but don't need to declare an emergency for. I get what you are saying, but sometimes declaring an emergency just isnt needed
 
jtrain609 said:
Maybe an example will make sense with this.

There are times where you're so busy trying to figure out WTF is going on with the airplane that you're not inclined to declare an emergency. One time, we went down to what you would call essential power in a King Air. Lost the cabin, boots, cockpit lights, half the instruments and a bunch other stuff in ice and IMC while climbing through FL180. Is that an emergency? Of course it is. Did we declare right away? No, we were too busy trying to figure out what was going on with the aircraft. At the same time, we needed to turn and descend right away, which we requested. The controller denied our requests 2-3 times, even after we told them we didn't have boots anymore and were in ice, and that we lost our cabin and needed to descend.

The result? We declared in order to TELL the controller what we were going to do. Would we have declared if he had simply given us what we asked for? Probably, but it would have come later down the road once we had figured out what was going on with the plane. But the necessity to declare didn't come until we couldn't get what we needed from the controller.

Frankly, when something happens that requires a diversion, the conversation might go something like:

Captain: "Huh...that ain't right."
First Officer: "Nope, wanna descend?"
Captain: "Yeah, yeah let's do that."
First Officer: "Center we'd like FL430 and get a turn back to KXXX."
ATC: "Descend and maintain FL430, do you require assistance?"
Captain: "Why's it doing that?"
First Officer: "Descend and maintain FL430, standby*click* I've got no idea."
Captain: "We have a checklist for that?"
First Officer: "Let me get it out."
ATC: "N12345, do you require assistance?"
Captain: "Tell him to STFU while we work on this."
First Officer: "Stand by*click* Ok here we go, ahh...'abnormal windshield arcing checklist', deselect windshield heat #2"
ATC: "N12345?"
Captain: "#@$)%(*#)$(%#)$(%*!!!!!!!!!!!!"
First Officer: "We'll call you back center."
ATC: "N12345 do you wish to declare an emergency?"

So is that an emergency? I don't know, I think you've got to run the checklist first and figure out if you can solve the problem before you start declaring an emergency. It will, quite frankly, take a little bit of time to figure out exactly what you're dealing with before we can make a determination of whether we need to declare. If we were declaring emergencies every time we got the QRH out, we'd be declaring every couple of legs on some days.

Now on the other side of that, there are things that will be an emergency declaration right away. What those things are, and how they occur, and in what order, and with what severity, and whether they get better or worse all start to affect these decisions.

Or I guess it could be said really simply to say that most of this isn't very black and white. There ARE some things that are, without a doubt, an emergency declaration, but there are many other things that are more of a wait and see what's going on before you make any decisions kind of abnormals.
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I agree with this. When I had the V1 a few months back after the prop reduction gearbox decided to eat the #1 AC Gen, we didn't really have a whole lot of figuring out to do, it was more along the lines of just being busy with checklists and such. Needless to say, since I was flying, my captain declared as soon as we got above acceleration height. Then we had to secure the engine, a memory item for us, followed by a check list. The check list is a few pages and takes about 5 minutes to run. Approach did a great job of vectoring us around until we got everything in order and were ready to land back at the field; however, a check list that should have taken 5 minutes to run took about 20 becuase ever minute or so ATC would ask us another question about the emergency, in addition to souls on board and fuel. If we ask you to stand by, do it until we say we a ready to get vectored back to the field, at that point all we have to do is fly, and we have all the time in the world to answer questions
 
Doug Taylor said:
No control and I'm not digging in code when I should be studying for recurrent! :)
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You could just FTP a blank version of the image file to the server and replace the heart (both the big one at the top of the page and the little one in the posts).

EDIT: Or you could keep studying for recurrent like a good little boy. :)
 
I think the hearts should stay, mostly so I can put them on all of Waco's posts to show my unending love for him.
 
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