Fedex 1376

roundout said:
I disagree. If I say the word “emergency” it means that ATC will get everyone out of my way, and not cut me in on too tight a final, thereby freeing up mental capacity for me to get the plane on the ground safely. That keeps me from rushing and potentially misreading a checklist, which could massively decrease the overall level of safety.
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Tell ATC whatever you need to get them to give you whatever you need to safely handle whatever problem you are dealing with.

However, tell yourself that this is not a life or death emergency, merely yet another problem to solve to safely care for the people on board. There are way too many cases where pilots turned malfunctions into emergencies by making rash decisions. How many times have pilots shut down the "good" engine leaving themselves with a poor glider? Go through the steps in your checklist quickly but deliberately.

Start at 1:50
 
USMCmech said:
One thing that I always focus on is that 99% of declared "Emergencies" are only malfunctions that can and should be handled deliberately. Declaring something like landing gear that won't extend an Emergency adds a lot of stress to the situation. You can hear the pilots voice jump an octave when they say the magic word. Another issue is that no matter what, you still have to fly your airplane, ATC can't help you there (half of them aren't pilots at any level).

Perfect example:

Now I'm not suggesting that a pilot EVER delay telling ATC that they need priority handling. If you are dealing with a problem and need help then declaring an emergency will get that message through immediately. Of course many malfunctions require landing with CFR ready just in case which are usually triggered by the pilot declaring.

In my mind, there are only three true emergencies, flight control malfunction, fire, and low altitude engine failure. An Emergency means that we might not live through the next 5 minutes, everything else is a problem to solve.
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Can not disagree more but we’ll run our cockpits differently and that’s ok.
 
mikecweb said:
Can not disagree more but we’ll run our cockpits differently and that’s ok.
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I've seen WAY too many students start flipping switches and pulling random levers "BECAUSE IT'S AN EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!" The FO that killed two pilots in the Atlas 3591 crash was well known for randomly pushing buttons when he was stressed. Two innocent pilots and a perfectly good airplane are gone just because someone hit the TOGA button accidentally and the pilot reacted without thinking.

Fly the airplane, slow down, THINK, pull out the ORH, tell ATC what you need, and handle the problem. Which is exactly what these pilots did in this case in Tennessee.
 
USMCmech said:
One thing that I always focus on is that 99% of declared "Emergencies" are only malfunctions that can and should be handled deliberately. Declaring something like landing gear that won't extend an Emergency adds a lot of stress to the situation. You can hear the pilots voice jump an octave when they say the magic word. Another issue is that no matter what, you still have to fly your airplane, ATC can't help you there (half of them aren't pilots at any level).

Perfect example:

Now I'm not suggesting that a pilot EVER delay telling ATC that they need priority handling. If you are dealing with a problem and need help then declaring an emergency will get that message through immediately. Of course many malfunctions require landing with CFR ready just in case which are usually triggered by the pilot declaring.

In my mind, there are only three true emergencies, flight control malfunction, fire, and low altitude engine failure. An Emergency means that we might not live through the next 5 minutes, everything else is a problem to solve.
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That’s the thing I was curious about. These guys mentioned flight control issues, and still didn’t declare an emergency, when that definitely falls under emergency. Not until the landing gear issue. Am generally curious as to why, or whether there’s any hesitancy to do so.

The E word shouldn’t generate any stress, not any more than the actual emergency being worked might already be. The emergency word is to let ATC and other know what you need, not to get yourself spooled up mindset-wise. It shouldn’t necessarily change how you’ve been trained to handle X or Y.

As ARFF, it’s nice to have the earliest possible heads up. And if the emergency gets cancelled or ends up, then all well and good. We still got a practice response out of it that we could time, a practice setup, and got to exercise the vehicles and equipment beyond just the shift checks.
 
MikeD said:
That’s the thing I was curious about. These guys mentioned flight control issues, and still didn’t declare an emergency, when that definitely falls under emergency. Not until the landing gear issue. Am generally curious as to why.

The E word shouldn’t generate any stress, not any more than the actual emergency being worked might already be. The emergency word is to let ATC and other know what you need, not to get yourself spooled up mindset-wise. It shouldn’t necessarily change how you’ve been trained to handle X or Y.

As ARFF, it’s nice to have the earliest possible heads up. And if the emergency gets cancelled or ends up, then all well and good. We still got a practice response out of it that we could time, a practice setup, and got to exercise the vehicles and equipment beyond just the shift checks.
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Yeah, I was curious about that too. Flight control issues are a "no BS get back on the ground ASAP emergency". Alaska 261 is a prime example. It will be interesting to read the report on this one.

I've seen plenty of pilot calmy declare "Emergency" with no more inflection than ordering a latte at Starbucks. I've also heard pilots "DECLARING AN EMERGENCY!" in full soprano and seemingly believing that ATC can fly the airplane for them. In those cases I'm certain that the pilot is reacting with emotion and instinct, not reason and procedure and making things worse not better. Not all of us are Pete Conrad who can keep his hand on the abort handle while seeing 57 caution and warning lights.

I don't give a second thought to making ARFF get out of bed and into their gear. They work for me and I know they're usually bored to tears anyway.

Again I have never and will never suggest that a pilot avoid declaring an emergency to ATC when the need to. However, I do think that we as pilots need to make the distinction between life and death emergencies vs equipment malfunctions that must be solved. As long as we have altitude, airspeed and fuel, then we should be using our brains.
 
USMCmech said:
Again I have never and will never suggest that a pilot avoid declaring an emergency to ATC when the need to. However, I do think that we as pilots need to make the distinction between life and death emergencies vs equipment malfunctions that must be solved. As long as we have altitude, airspeed and fuel, then we should be using our brains.
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What kind of equipment malfunctions are you talking about?
 
As to why the crew called it a flight control issue, as I recall, flaps are in the flight control chapter in the AOM and probably the QRH, as well. I'd have to go dust off my manuals to confirm and I have a cat on my lap, so it will have to wait for later.
 
Kingairer said:
What kind of equipment malfunctions are you talking about?
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Anything that the QRH says “land as soon as practicable”. Down to one generator, door seal leaking, engine rollback at altitude, zero flap landing, ect.

I used to give my King Air students a generator offline malfunction while in IMC. Many would look for it in the checklist and then I’d hear switches being flipped on and off. After a minute they would trip the good generator offline causing the cockpit to go completely black. They just turned a malfunction into a true emergency and saw the red screen shortly thereafter.
 
USMCmech said:
Anything that the QRH says “land as soon as practicable”. Down to one generator, door seal leaking, engine rollback at altitude, zero flap landing, ect.

I used to give my King Air students a generator offline malfunction while in IMC. Many would look for it in the checklist and then I’d hear switches being flipped on and off. After a minute they would trip the good generator offline causing the cockpit to go completely black. They just turned a malfunction into a true emergency and saw the red screen shortly thereafter.
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Those are just weak pilots whether you call it an emergency or not.
 
Kingairer said:
Those are just weak pilots whether you call it an emergency or not.
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No argument here.

I imagine that we are arguing over the semantics of the word Emergency and would all handle any given situation very similarly. I just keep emphasizing that not every emergency is an “emergency”.
 
You can always start out with "pan pan, pan pan, pan pan". Flying anywhere where English is the second language, mayday is a very important word. It gets everybody out of the way and let's then know you might be changing course. Asking for things can cause more trouble.
 
WacoFan said:
Dude - he COMMENTED! That's like a Paul Hollywood handshake after the weird, awkward girl nails the muffins on British Baking Show! I've been on JC since 2008 or so and the SOB has never commented to me once!
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It's not a badge of honor. @SteveC commenting on anything I've posted is not uncommon. Perhaps the fact that he actually liked something I posted is unusual but that's just life. Keep on keeping on.
 
USMCmech said:
However, I do think that we as pilots need to make the distinction between life and death emergencies vs equipment malfunctions that must be solved.
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That distinction exists.

It’s the difference between using “Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan, Pan-Pan” and “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday”.

I wish the primary instructors here in the US would move away from using the word “Emergency” to using the ICAO terminology mentioned above. Not only does it allow us to distinguish between an urgent situation (Pan-Pam) and a distress situation (Mayday), but it also builds the habit of using words that will get an appropriate response from ATC anywhere in the world.
 
You also don't have to simply blurt out "mayday mayday mayday" "or pan pan pan".

A callsign and "declaring an emergency for XYX and we need XYZ" covers the bases, and gets you the support you need without having to think if the situation you are in is a mayday or a pan. We are making this too complicated...
 
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Pan-Pan used in the USA. I know it’s definitely a thing and has a specific meaning, I’ve just never personally heard it used here, I’ve only heard it being used overseas.
 
Inverted said:
You also don't have to simply blurt out "mayday mayday mayday" "or pan pan pan".

A callsign and "declaring an emergency for XYX and we need XYZ" covers the bases, and gets you the support you need without having to think if the situation you are in is a mayday or a pan. We are making this too complicated...
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If you do that in a lot of FIRs they will have no idea what you are talking about. That said, it would work great in the US.
 
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