Declared for the first time today

[A300Capt]

I’ve declared 4 times. Once while at Chautauqua on the Metro and 3 times at Brown. No biggy.

I’ve noticed on several recent YouTube videos where several of the airline folks are declaring “Mayday’s” with engine failures that seem fairly vanilla instead of just “PanPan..” or “declaring an emergency” in the US. Is this a new airline or FAA policy just in the last few years.

Mayday’s are used when the life/death outcome is in serious doubt...or when I’m flying. Engine failures in Asia or Europe are generally PanPan situations.

 

[knot4u]

This will be a lifetime example of a cascade failure of 1000 cuts.
I ALWAYS conduct a final walk around as a Cap or FO
I've had a LOT of people screw up.... I'VE screwed it up.

Lack of checklists... inexcusable.

Cap should surrender his license and change careers.

Finally, the company needs to find out if this lack of adhering to procedures and standardization is systemic and chronic.

If yes, then a full stand down and retraining is in order and a reevaluation of the higher ups (CP DO etc) is necessary.

Another incident and this company loses its reputation and goes TU

We once had a G-V crew take off with passengers headed to Cancun(?) with the gear pins still installed. When they went to raise the gear it obviously stayed down so they came around and landed. Someone who'd worked with us noticed this odd behavior from the other side of the field and when the plane stopped on the taxiway and the MED opened he started videoing the situation with his phone. The copilot came outside, removed all of the gear pins, got back in, closed the door and the airplane taxied back to the ramp. Once they got to the ramp, the copilot reinstalled the gear pins, deplaned the pax and promptly grounded the airplane because the landing gear wouldn't retract. Obviously MX got a phone call immediately from a very irate dispatch department and a couple of us drove down to the ramp to see what might've happened. The first thing I noticed was the gear doors were all open, the second thing I noticed was the flags on the gear pins were all tattered (I'd post/preflighted the airplane the prior day and the flags were not tattered). The crew said they'd done the emergency gear blowdown procedure just to be safe, we asked if they had a three green indication on the gear and they said they did (that explained the gear doors). It was at about that time my bosses phone went "Ding!" And when he checked it was the video of the airplane stopping on the taxiway. Because they'd taken off, experienced a mechanical issue and had to return the FAA had to be notified. So the next day we got to spend quality time jacking up a G-V (with a good amount of fuel in it) and do the complete landing gear functional test (not check, a test is more thorough than a check) with the our PMI and POI looking over our shoulders. All while the video got buried, the pilots never faced any disciplinary measures and everyone upstairs did their best to just forget the whole thing had ever happened. I had to order new flags for the pins so I ordered fluorescent green replacements. I'm fairly certain the whole thing probably cost the company well into six figures and there were no repercussions. It pissed me off, I wouldn't want the pilots to lose their gig but just sweeping it under the rug does absolutely nothing to dissuade that sort of behavior in the future for the entire pilot group, also if I'd have done something that cost the company that much money my neck would've been on the chopping block. Worse than that was the fact that they tried to hide their mistake, that sort of attitude has no place in aviation.

 

[DropTank]

We once had a G-V crew take off with passengers headed to Cancun(?) with the gear pins still installed. When they went to raise the gear it obviously stayed down so they came around and landed. Someone who'd worked with us noticed this odd behavior from the other side of the field and when the plane stopped on the taxiway and the MED opened he started videoing the situation with his phone. The copilot came outside, removed all of the gear pins, got back in, closed the door and the airplane taxied back to the ramp. Once they got to the ramp, the copilot reinstalled the gear pins, deplaned the pax and promptly grounded the airplane because the landing gear wouldn't retract. Obviously MX got a phone call immediately from a very irate dispatch department and a couple of us drove down to the ramp to see what might've happened. The first thing I noticed was the gear doors were all open, the second thing I noticed was the flags on the gear pins were all tattered (I'd post/preflighted the airplane the prior day and the flags were not tattered). The crew said they'd done the emergency gear blowdown procedure just to be safe, we asked if they had a three green indication on the gear and they said they did (that explained the gear doors). It was at about that time my bosses phone went "Ding!" And when he checked it was the video of the airplane stopping on the taxiway. Because they'd taken off, experienced a mechanical issue and had to return the FAA had to be notified. So the next day we got to spend quality time jacking up a G-V (with a good amount of fuel in it) and do the complete landing gear functional test (not check, a test is more thorough than a check) with the our PMI and POI looking over our shoulders. All while the video got buried, the pilots never faced any disciplinary measures and everyone upstairs did their best to just forget the whole thing had ever happened. I had to order new flags for the pins so I ordered fluorescent green replacements. I'm fairly certain the whole thing probably cost the company well into six figures and there were no repercussions. It pissed me off, I wouldn't want the pilots to lose their gig but just sweeping it under the rug does absolutely nothing to dissuade that sort of behavior in the future for the entire pilot group, also if I'd have done something that cost the company that much money my neck would've been on the chopping block. Worse than that was the fact that they tried to hide their mistake, that sort of attitude has no place in aviation.

1. In a G5, they probably have a rather important Primary inside.
[fornicating] that up in front of the Primary has a significant chance of damaging or ruining the reputation of the company.
2. They now have the attention of the PMI/POI. That is NOT a great thing to happen. And don't think for a SECOND that they don't know what REALLY happened. AND>... if they believe that the DO is covering this up, will be watching like a predator for the next mistake until the end of time.

As a DO or CP, I'd seriously consider this an RGE (Resume Generating Event), and need an EXTREMELY good reason to not fire the crew.

This is a MAJOR reason why you pay your crew properly.
If you're so damn cheap that it takes you 6-12 months to spool up a new crew since no one wants to work for you, you lack options to drop bad crews and enforce the smallest modicum of discipline and standardization.

 

[NovemberEcho]

I’ve declared 4 times. Once while at Chautauqua on the Metro and 3 times at Brown. No biggy.

I’ve noticed on several recent YouTube videos where several of the airline folks are declaring “Mayday’s” with engine failures that seem fairly vanilla instead of just “PanPan..” or “declaring an emergency” in the US. Is this a new airline or FAA policy just in the last few years.

Mayday’s are used when the life/death outcome is in serious doubt...or when I’m flying. Engine failures in Asia or Europe are generally PanPan situations.

I’ve only heard pan pan once and it was a euro carrier. I’ve only heard mayday twice, once on guard by a piper with an engine loss over the Hudson (who was immediately answered with yer on gaaauurrrddd) and once by a Lindbergh right on departure. Everything else is “we need to declare an emergency” or “we have an issue” and then after playing 20 questions or after holding to run checklist they’ll declare.

 

[Kingairer]

I’ve only heard pan pan once and it was a euro carrier. I’ve only heard mayday twice, once on guard by a piper with an engine loss over the Hudson (who was immediately answered with yer on gaaauurrrddd) and once by a Lindbergh right on departure. Everything else is “we need to declare an emergency” or “we have an issue” and then after playing 20 questions or after holding to run checklist they’ll declare.

It has been a new emphasis item for us over the last 5 years or so to use the ICAO terms PAN and Mayday vs. Declare emergency. The idea is that declaring an emergency in some foreign countries we operate to or overfly may lead to confusion. More recently has been a refinement of this as to when Pan-Pan may be more appropriate than May-day.

 

[MikeD]

I’ve only heard pan pan once and it was a euro carrier. I’ve only heard mayday twice, once on guard by a piper with an engine loss over the Hudson (who was immediately answered with yer on gaaauurrrddd) and once by a Lindbergh right on departure. Everything else is “we need to declare an emergency” or “we have an issue” and then after playing 20 questions or after holding to run checklist they’ll declare.

Europe/ICAO definitely uses Pan-Pan far more than the USA does. Always hated hearing ATC have to drag out information or even an emergency declaration from pilots; complete wasted time and radio air time. Of the about maybe 12 or so emergency declarations I’ve had in my career for both aircraft and aircraft related stuff, I always made sure to make the declaration all-encompassing, stating to ATC declaring an emergency, what it was for, souls/fuel, and intentions. That way there was no 20 questions having to be done by ATC, they had what they needed. “Declaring an emergency, bleed overheat warning with an engine shutdown, 1 onboard with 1.5 hours fuel, requesting radar vectors for TACAN final to 15.” Keep it all C4 comms.

I still remember one emergency declaration 20 years ago now, being sent by ATC to holding at an IAF fix with an EFC time in night low IMC, all due to there being six more-critical inflight emergency aircraft being vectored to the only airfield that was barely above mins on the ROK west coast. Osan would've been nice, but they were below mins as was most of the ROK, except for Kunsan and Sokcho or some other airbase on the far northeast coast. All of Taegu’s airborne ROKAF F-4s were recovering at the Kun, as were their F-5s from that were Kun based. That's when all heck began breaking loose. I had a serious, but not critical at this exact moment, emergency; but I also had tons of fuel at the moment......so, go hold at the IAF. Expect vectors and handoff to the final controller........at some point in time, six other jets have bigger problems right now than you do.

"Per the SOF, EFC is TBD for now Ghost 7; descend and maintain FL200 and advise entering holding and any emergency changes" Ha! Nice warm and fuzzy there.......I still even have that tape with the radio comms and HUD view of the low IMC, the ROKAF PAR controller talking me down, and breaking out of the WX at about 150’ and 3/8 or so. Fun times.

 

[WacoFan]

Mike tells the best stories - sometimes inadvertently just cause he was doing something cool that is the background of his point. Honorable mention to AMG and Knot with his maintenance stories.

 

[knot4u]

1. In a G5, they probably have a rather important Primary inside.
[fornicating] that up in front of the Primary has a significant chance of damaging or ruining the reputation of the company.
2. They now have the attention of the PMI/POI. That is NOT a great thing to happen. And don't think for a SECOND that they don't know what REALLY happened. AND>... if they believe that the DO is covering this up, will be watching like a predator for the next mistake until the end of time.

As a DO or CP, I'd seriously consider this an RGE (Resume Generating Event), and need an EXTREMELY good reason to not fire the crew.

This is a MAJOR reason why you pay your crew properly.
If you're so damn cheap that it takes you 6-12 months to spool up a new crew since no one wants to work for you, you lack options to drop bad crews and enforce the smallest modicum of discipline and standardization.

It was a charter with a bunch of folks, the owner was not on the plane, one of the group was probably the primary customer but I never delved into the charter side of the business. The only time I dealt with the dispatch folks was when I'd call and say the plane's not going to make the flight or they'd call telling me an airplane was broken on the ramp with pax aboard, I think I've only ever received a warm fuzzy call from them was when an airplane was broken with some super extra special VVIP was onboard and going to be late and pissed, so I'd go down with my bag of fixing sticks and bang on a couple of things to get the airplane working again before the sky fell down and the world ended, those calls were few and far between. I'd agree the POI was probably aware of what happened, the FSDO was on the field, I'd guess they were probably pretty tight with the tower (stopping jets on a taxiway for no apparent reason is frowned upon at the busiest GA airport in the country). It was a large operation with a big fleet, seeing the FAA snooping around was not uncommon in the MX hangar, I'd imagine it was the same for the Ops folks. We had a good reputation and although they were ever present the FAA was not trying to shut us down, normally the PMI would come around to review conformity inspections before allowing another airplane to be added to the cert and possibly do a couple of spot checks. A spot check might consist of them just walking by a toolbox, seeing a torque wrench and picking it up to check the calibration date or it could get more detailed, such as why someone was doing something, was it scheduled or unscheduled, if unscheduled where is the write up from the crew, what exactly are you doing and do you have the pertinent AMM procedure immediately available, if you're changing a part where is the certs for that part and on and on. That level of scrutiny was fairly rare because we normally had all of the correct answers and paperwork, and honestly if a PMI sneaks up on you a few times and doesn't find anything untoward they relax a bit. I have worked for a shady operator that the PMI has a hard on for, I recall one hot summer afternoon I was in the cockpit of a LR-35 changing an ADI and I got cornered by this guy, he asked me all of the questions and I just handed him a clipboard with everything on it and he just said "Thanks" and walked away. Back then we were changing 731s at least once a week and he tried to corner my partner and I during an engine change, once again I just pointed to the pile of papers neatly stacked on my toolbox next to the airplane. He went and looked at them and again just said "Thanks" and walked away, and I don't recall him ever hassling me again. But as I said this was not a sterling example of a 135 operation and the same guy jammed up a mechanic to the point that he was at risk of losing his certs for a log entry. A G-II/III/IV has a set of pressure and quantity hydraulics gages on the belly of the airplane to assist MX when servicing the hydraulic systems. As I recall one of the accumulator gages was inop. I don't remember exactly what the issue was but the mechanic called Tech Ops and was given some guidance to rectify the issue and he mentioned it in his sign-off as "per Gulfstream Tech-Ops performed...". And now this FAA inspector with a hard on for this company saw that log entry and went ballistic. He started saying that the company was not following the AMM, one log entry that mentioned a phone call caused this very smart, talented and conscientious mechanic a huge heartburn for awhile. The bosses at the FSDO looked at it and told him to back off. He was actually not a bad guy once you got to know him. Funniest thing about about the whole thing was his name, Phil Mckracken (tee hee).

 

[inigo88]

Europe/ICAO definitely uses Pan-Pan far more than the USA does. Always hated hearing ATC have to drag out information or even an emergency declaration from pilots; complete wasted time and radio air time. Of the about maybe 12 or so emergency declarations I’ve had in my career for both aircraft and aircraft related stuff, I always made sure to make the declaration all-encompassing, stating to ATC declaring an emergency, what it was for, souls/fuel, and intentions. That way there was no 20 questions having to be done by ATC, they had what they needed. “Declaring an emergency, bleed overheat warning with an engine shutdown, 1 onboard with 1.5 hours fuel, requesting radar vectors for TACAN final to 15.” Keep it all C4 comms.

I still remember one emergency declaration 20 years ago now, being sent by ATC to holding at an IAF fix with an EFC time in night low IMC, all due to there being six more-critical inflight emergency aircraft being vectored to the only airfield that was barely above mins on the ROK west coast. Osan would've been nice, but they were below mins as was most of the ROK, except for Kunsan and Sokcho or some other airbase on the far northeast coast. All of Taegu’s airborne ROKAF F-4s were recovering at the Kun, as were their F-5s from that were Kun based. That's when all heck began breaking loose. I had a serious, but not critical at this exact moment, emergency; but I also had tons of fuel at the moment......so, go hold at the IAF. Expect vectors and handoff to the final controller........at some point in time, six other jets have bigger problems right now than you do.

"Per the SOF, EFC is TBD for now Ghost 7; descend and maintain FL200 and advise entering holding and any emergency changes" Ha! Nice warm and fuzzy there.......I still even have that tape with the radio comms and HUD view of the low IMC, the ROKAF PAR controller talking me down, and breaking out of the WX at about 150’ and 3/8 or so. Fun times.

Mike if you put that HUD tape on YouTube I would totally watch it. Just sayin! (Plus I think VHS degrades over time so not a bad idea to digitize it, for historical preservation purposes haha!)

 

[NovemberEcho]

I still remember one emergency declaration 20 years ago now, being sent by ATC to holding at an IAF

I had an F-15 rtb emergency fuel and when I started vectoring him he says “negative we are emergency fuel” and I just replied “Roger, you’re number 5 in the emergency fuel pattern turn right heading 360.” Fighters routinely came back from the W areas emergency fuel.

 

[DPApilot]

We got a memo about a year ago pertaining to this. Under some strange interpretation, any time an aircraft takes the runway and gets a takeoff clearance and them elects to leave the runway, it's a required reportable event to the FAA. We now have to make a logbook entry as and info to the company item so they can pass it along to the FAA. The examples we were given were RTOs and getting a takeoff clearances and then getting lined up to make a radar sweep of weather and electing not to go.

Happened to me on one of my last trips at NK. Got off the runway due to wind shear reports. “Well, now we need to call the CP.” Captain didn’t think it was considered a RTO, but it was in the eyes of the FAA.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Oops, wrong thread. Meant to post in the crypto thread.

 

[DropTank]

View attachment 87269

Oops, wrong thread. Meant to post in th crypto thread.

Financial of moral?

 

[jrh]

Yeah, I've heard about it even earlier than that, and in the GA world too. My impression was that it was more about the subsequent departure and whether the abort was due to an unairworthy condition that wasn't fixed. But that was only an impression I have not tried to verify.

Looks like @jrh can confirm my impression.

Maintenance/airworthiness is certainly a big focus, but not exclusive. I think it's general oversight and trend tracking.

I put it in the same category as ASAP/ASRS reports. File an ASAP report not because you did something wrong necessarily, but because something went wrong.

Nobody lines up for takeoff and doesn't takeoff if everything is safe. SOMETHING is amiss if one stays on the ground. It might be a mechanical issue, aircraft configured improperly, avionics configured improperly, weather hazard, ATC mistake, disruptive passenger, or whatever, but at the end of the day, an aborted takeoff is proof some kind of hazard existed. I think that's ultimately what the FAA is trying to keep tabs on.