When pilots realize that their plane is going down, they'll immediately get on the radio and say Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This will clear the radio of traffic and clutter and allow them to call in their emergency.
The term 'Mayday' originates from the French phrase 'm'aider' which means 'help me'. It was first adopted as a distress signal for aviation in the early 1920s. The credit for its implementation goes to Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio officer at London's Croydon Airport.
A pilot who encounters a Distress condition should declare an emergency by beginning the initial communication with the word “Mayday,” preferably repeated three times. For an Urgency condition, the word “Pan‐Pan” should be used in the same manner.
'I've got a screw loose' 'I'll go nose down and call it a. night'
'I'll go nose down and call it a night': Haunting final words of hijacker who stole a 76-seat plane and told air traffic controller 'I've got a screw loose' before crashing to his death.
One second before the plane hit the water off the Southern California coast Jan. 31 at three times the force of gravity, killing all 88 people aboard, Thompson said his last words to Tansky, 57, of Alameda: "Ah, here we go."
Convention requires the word be repeated three times in a row during the initial emergency declaration ("Mayday mayday mayday") to prevent it being mistaken for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions, and to distinguish an actual mayday call from a message about a mayday call.
Pan-Pan, short for “possible assistance needed,” is used to communicate an urgent, but not emergency, situation over VHF radio, in the case of aviation, to air traffic control. Examples could include a recreational pilot getting lost, or perhaps needing to climb to a higher altitude to sort a problem out.
When pilots realize that their plane is going down, they'll immediately get on the radio and say Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This will clear the radio of traffic and clutter and allow them to call in their emergency.
High Flight is a 1941 sonnet written by war poet John Gillespie Magee Jr. and inspired by his experiences as a fighter pilot of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II.
The ICAO Phonetic Alphabet is meant to decrease risk and misunderstanding and improve communication between those involved in air travel. Many letters and phrases sound too similar, for example, the letters “p” and “b” may sound the same over the radio. So instead, pilots would say “papa” or “bravo”.
Wake turbulence poses a major risk to other aircraft, so pilots and ATC use the term “heavy” in radio transmissions as a reminder that the aircraft's wake may be dangerous to others passing behind or below the flightpath of these larger-mass aircraft.
Pilots are not actually “trained” per se to be “calm” in an emergency. Any calmness is merely the result of repetitive training for emergency situations.
Squawking 7700 will allow ATC to prepare for a quick landing, allowing controllers to inform nearby aircraft and clear any runways needed, as well as inform the authorities of any other support necessary (such as fire services or an ambulance). Having such a code available is very useful.
If you feel your life is in jeopardy, call Mayday. If you need immediate assistance to deal with a serious situation that is not life threatening, call Pan-Pan. Remember, in either case, it is up to you to fly your airplane to the best of your ability.
There was—S.O.S.—but there were some problems with it: Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the letter “S” by telephone, the international distress signal “S.O.S.” will give place to the words “May-day”, the phonetic equivalent of “M'aidez”, the French for “Help me.”
While it has the same meaning as S.O.S. – "Save our Souls" – "Mayday" is more commonly used to convey an emergency verbally. S.O.S. is used less often these days since it was used mostly to indicate an emergency situation when transmitted by Morse code – three dots followed by three dashes and three more dots.
Distress and Urgency Communications
The initial communication, and if considered necessary, any subsequent transmissions by an aircraft in distress should begin with the signal MAYDAY, preferably repeated three times.
Most of the passengers and crew remain trapped in the wreckage of the airliner that rests some 640 feet deep in the Santa Barbara Channel. Authorities have said that four bodies were recovered shortly after the crash, although other scattered body parts have been found since then; no identifications have been released.
As of August 2004, only one of the suits, brought on behalf of passenger Joan Smith, 53, of Burlingame, California, remained pending. Flight recorder data showed that Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean at 4:22 p.m., at a speed of more than 200 miles per hour.
A technician for Alaska Airlines performed two breathalyzer tests that showed the pilot had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.134 percent and 0.142 percent – both of which were well above the federal limit of 0.04.