ATC declare an emergency for me?

mrivc211

mrivc211

Well-Known Member
If I'm asked whether I want to declare an emergency and I say NO! why does ATC go ahead and do it for me? I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I"m just curious. I have to say, controllers are worth every penny they make, and more. Thanks for making the skies safe for us.
 
There was a thread on this a few months back ... yes, we (ATC) can declare an emergency for a pilot. There are many reasons but the most common would be for our own piece of mind, during an emergency a pilot (or flight crew) is very busy and we (ATC) only know a fraction of what is going on in the cockpit. There is no penalty in declaring.

When a pilot states he is having difficulty we do everything we can to provide assistance. In the case of declaring an emergency it gives us more tools to work with. On any given day I would prefer to overreact and declare an emergency then to look back and wish I had.

Many GA pilots (and this is not a slam against them) seem hesitant to declare and emergency. I would speculate this is caused by fear of answering to the FAA, or not being familiar with ATC (dealing with grumpy controllers ...LOL). There are any number of reasons, but I have declared for GA A/C. I sensed hesitation in their comms, hard to explain, but in one instance I spoke with the pilot later in the day and he thanked me, said it helped him to just fly the plane.
 
No. That's like the old 'this will go on your permanent record' myth from high school. Don't worry about that at all.
 
Aweone thanks for the reply. I just earned my PPL so from my point of view I think there are ALOT of pilots out there that believe that myth. They are in fear that if they call an emergancy then it will immediatly be on their permanent record and then that will screw up their career.
 
that happenned to me 2 days ago i was doing an approach into kdab and one of my lights on my postion lights did not light up on short final so I went around and I recycled again no luck so tower ask why are we not landing in a nasty tone. Finally i said one of our position light for the landing gear is not coming down but now Im doing an emergency gear extension ( regreat saying the emergency part but thats the name of the procedure) so the he ask me are you declaring an emergency I say no like 3 times we gome in and land and sure enough we land and theres all these fire trucks waititng for us there taxi'd with us till the we got to the fbo.
 
supra1998tt said:
that happenned to me 2 days ago i was doing an approach into kdab and one of my lights on my postion lights did not light up on short final so I went around and I recycled again no luck so tower ask why are we not landing in a nasty tone. Finally i said one of our position light for the landing gear is not coming down but now Im doing an emergency gear extension ( regreat saying the emergency part but thats the name of the procedure) so the he ask me are you declaring an emergency I say no like 3 times we gome in and land and sure enough we land and theres all these fire trucks waititng for us there taxi'd with us till the we got to the fbo.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't you declare an emergency, just out of curious. Wondering about the thought process in pilots' minds.

Declaring an emergency just to be on the safe side----It's like having a condom in your wallet. I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. You know?
 
I am curious about this myself... I would like to hear some feedback on why some pilots do not declare. From the perspective of Dave and myself it seems like a real no brain-er to declare at the slightest hint of trouble.

I have very limited flight experience (500 TT) so maybe I think on the conservative side but to me declaring an emergency is a valuable tool to use as a pilot when something is wrong.
 
"FAR 91.3

Responsibility and authority of the pilot in command.
(a) The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the
operation of that aircraft.
(b) In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any
rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency.
(c) Each pilot in command who deviates from a rule under paragraph (b) of this section shall, upon the
request of the Administrator, send a written report of that deviation to the Administrator."

Subparagrah (c) intimidates a lot of folks. They think it means you'll be talking to a FSDO inspector about the flight if you delcare and possibly have your license pulled.
 
which is what detered me from declaring one in the first place for an issue that was questionable. They ended up doing it for me anyways.
 
mrivc211 said:
which is what detered me from declaring one in the first place for an issue that was questionable. They ended up doing it for me anyways.
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I'll take talking to a FSDO guy any day over explaining to someone's kid why daddy ain't coming home.
 
Fair, but depending on the inspector you end up investigating they can be pretty ruthless. I've met some inspectors that want nothing more than to increase the level of safety in aviation, and I've met inspectors hell bent on taking pilot certificates away. It just depends on the FSDO and it depends on the inspector. If I ever had a Fort Worth controller declare for me I'd be REALLY worried about my certificates if an inspector got involved. That FSDO has a lot of people that are more interested in grounding pilots than anything else.

EDIT: I guess this can go either way, with the inspector telling you "Why didn't you just declare?" Simply put, it's something a lot of guys get really worried about I think because there ARE guys at the FSDO's that want nothing more than to take your certificates away from you. Kellwolf can tell you about a guy like that.
 
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