Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kikapu]

Mayday - imminent threat to life. Pan - urgent situation?

I had a couple of Pan calls. Pull up a sandbag ........

I had few, the Pan, the Pan, the fucking Pan is burning call-out in the kitchen whenever the wife would cook.

[Londonrake]

Mayday - imminent threat to life. Pan - urgent situation?

I had a couple of Pan calls. Pull up a sandbag ........

I had few, the Pan, the Pan, the fucking Pan is burning call-out in the kitchen whenever the wife would cook.

Yep. Been there. To the point of throwing it away and buying a good air fryer. Even with that though. Doesn’t matter what you do it seems, like good lawyers, they’ll find a way around.

[Paphitis]

Then we conduct a Mayday or Pan pan call. I always opt for the pan pan as the plane never seems to fall out of the sky when I get these in the sim. United went for Mayday. Fair call there. The distinction is you are declaring an urgent emergency that is extremely urgent and requires activation of all emergency services as opposed to a mayday which does that and you are declaring that the aircraft is in grave danger that will result in loss of life or a crash. That might have been the pilots assessment initially which is why they went for mayday. Or they just wanted to use mayday because they didn’t want to hold back which is fair too. Or they got flustered at the time under the pressure which is AOK. Yes you do get flustered under pressure and the workload is intense which is y I don’t go to the radio immediately and prefer to control my plane as I feel this is the thing that will kill me snd other people. As for the controllers and my deviations, they can wait and get other planes out of my way. Which is what they would do in real life anyway. Then I talk to them when I’m ready for it.

Mayday Mayday was the right call here because this was not just the case of an engine flame out and just flying on one engine which could easily get back to the airport. This was the case of uncontrolled destruction of the engine which was still on fire and with large pieces falling apart and from the engine. My guess is the right seat pilot could not see anything from his seat and more than likely neither pilot left their seats at this time of emergency to go and take a look from the cabin. Most probably, a flight attendant took a look and relayed the information to the crew in the cockpit, and from the FA's point of view, the engine is totally destroyed, still on fire and shaking like a leaf about to fall off the wing completely, which then can go anywhere, including the engine striking the Horizontal stabilizers and /or the tail, ripping it/them off completely, in which case, the plane would have crashed 100%, so the possibility of life and death situation was very real and present with this situation.

Yes look I’m not saying it was the wrong call to a Mayday call. It’s far too easy to criticize but unless you are there and know the full circumstances and the intensity of the situation, it’s unfair on the pilots to be critical who actually did a great job. In any case it’s very nit picky and they would have been dealing with a lot.

And they could have actually felt at the time that they were in grave danger. So Nay day may be warranted.

With an engine fire and a surge which is clearly what happened here, for reasons unknown at the moment, the engine will likely destroy itself and virtually disintegrate into pieces. The vibration and shaking would have been diabolical and any blades that may have been taken out from the turbofan or turbine would have put it out of balance so the engine would have shamed itself apart till the engine was shut down.

Which is why I go straight to vital actions after getting the plane under some level of control in the sim. After vital actions are complete, the engine is both shut down and the extinguishers would have been engaged.

In the sim they play all sorts of games with us to increase our workload even more from a situation where the workload is already extreme and stressful. Nothing as stressful as the real thing though which is what these guys had. But they would do these drills every sim check. But 2 separate situations - one real, and the other a fake training exercise in a synthetic simulator.

The types of games, I don’t go to the radio straight up. I go to vital actions. Not sure if these guys did the same but they should have. They should have just gone ahead and made their turn as they were dealing with an emergency. But again you don’t know what the circumstances were. They could have been on a parallel runway and there might have been another plane in their path.

After vital actions, I go to the radio and usually declare a pan pan as I’m not yet of the mindset that I’m in grave danger. If you can’t maintain a climb then you obviously do a mayday. After all that you do the Second Phase Checks which requires to read every check off a check list. You have more time to do these checks. These are non memory items.

As I said, we get these things every sim session just after take off. The exact same scenario. On the first take off. After the pan pan is declared. They clear us to return back to the airport usually via radar vectoring on one engine at 5000 feet then cleared to descend to 3000 feet to intercept the Melbourne ILS to land. Only problem is, it’s never that simple. The weather is rain showers and storms and cloud down to 500 feet so we do the ILS but they never make us visual so we go around and get vectored round to the ILS again and then they give us a glide slope failure so we conduct a localiser approach and we don’t get visual, so then we get vectored again for our final try but this time we are cleared for the RNAV approach and we do that approach and we become visual and land. That ticks off an ILS, LLZ and RNAV. Then we go onto the next exercises which include Deppresrization, Emergency Descents, Steep Turns, 3 night circuits, Stall recovery, and maybe a VIR approach on one engine as well if we have time.

If not it’s ok because the ILS covers off the VOR.

Once you got the pan pan call out, it’s easy to upgrade to a May Day but the difference is negligee anyway. The airport will activate a full emergency response with a pan pan call. Airport Fire and Rescue would be mobilised instantly. The Metropolitan Fire Services and a hundred ambulance vehicles would be waiting at the Emergency gates which would be open. A triage system is also set up where passengers are gathered and assessed by paramedics and allocated their priority. The police would respond as well more than likely. Also all hospitals in the area would be prepared to take patients so they are part of the grid too.

So I go for the pan pan as first port of call and I never got in trouble doing it either. But if you dealing with the real thing, you need to evaluate the situation very quickly and there could be other factors that necessitate a Mayday. In the end, no investigator on the planet is going to criticise it.

[Paphitis]

Then we conduct a Mayday or Pan pan call. I always opt for the pan pan as the plane never seems to fall out of the sky when I get these in the sim. United went for Mayday. Fair call there. The distinction is you are declaring an urgent emergency that is extremely urgent and requires activation of all emergency services as opposed to a mayday which does that and you are declaring that the aircraft is in grave danger that will result in loss of life or a crash. That might have been the pilots assessment initially which is why they went for mayday. Or they just wanted to use mayday because they didn’t want to hold back which is fair too. Or they got flustered at the time under the pressure which is AOK. Yes you do get flustered under pressure and the workload is intense which is y I don’t go to the radio immediately and prefer to control my plane as I feel this is the thing that will kill me snd other people. As for the controllers and my deviations, they can wait and get other planes out of my way. Which is what they would do in real life anyway. Then I talk to them when I’m ready for it.

Mayday Mayday was the right call here because this was not just the case of an engine flame out and just flying on one engine which could easily get back to the airport. This was the case of uncontrolled destruction of the engine which was still on fire and with large pieces falling apart and from the engine. My guess is the right seat pilot could not see anything from his seat and more than likely neither pilot left their seats at this time of emergency to go and take a look from the cabin. Most probably, a flight attendant took a look and relayed the information to the crew in the cockpit, and from the FA's point of view, the engine is totally destroyed, still on fire and shaking like a leaf about to fall off the wing completely, which then can go anywhere, including the engine striking the Horizontal stabilizers and /or the tail, ripping it/them off completely, in which case, the plane would have crashed 100%, so the possibility of life and death situation was very real and present with this situation.

No one would leave their seat. They can see the front part of the engine but poor FO would just look over his shoulder for a second and confirm, yep it’s on fire. No time to communicate with cabin crew and even if they tried it’s highly unlikely we would pick up the handset during vital actions.

Engines have fallen off before. It’s a distinct possibility when an engine shakes itself apart like that. But as long as there is no structural damage to the wing.

If the wing or horizontal or vertical stabilisers are damaged, then I’m afraid there is not much of a chance of survival.

[Paphitis]

Mayday - imminent threat to life. Pan - urgent situation?

I had a couple of Pan calls. Pull up a sandbag ........

I had few, the Pan, the Pan, the fucking Pan is burning call-out in the kitchen whenever the wife would cook.

Then you say:

Pan Pan Pan ..... it’s a declaration of a full emergency situation requiring an urgent emergency response.

Mayday Mayday Mayday is the same as above but with a distinct significant possibility that there will be a crash causing death and injury to passengers on board or people on the ground.

Basically if you think someone is going to be killed, it’s a Mayday.

These pilots may have felt at the time that this was a possibility hence their Mayday. It’s a fair call on their part and the Captain’s discretion. The fact that no one was killed is a bonus.

So it’s not an incorrect call. I’m just saying what we do in the sim but doesn’t mean I’ll do the same in a real one in the air. Circumstances are different. And when you feel the shaking and vibration for the first time in your life, it’s not unreasonable to presume the worst inmho. I

Checklist states Mayday or Pan Pan in the second phase check list.

I don’t know if these guys did it as part of their second phase but it doesn’t appear so at first look.

I think the pilots did very well. So they should be applauded. You expect this from United. Definitely A Grade stuff. It’s a good outfit for sure. I’ll fly with them...( )

One thing you can say about Americans and their style is that they don’t make a massive song and dance about situations. They simplify everything as much as they can. They dumb it down and Keep it Simple and by the book. No carry on on the radios like we do, just business. I like that style personally. It’s important to simplify everything when there are 12000 pilots in a single company. Basically they have the same amount of employees as half the population of Cyprus.

I think we should all try to emulate it. European, Australian, German, UK regulators knock them but in my opinion they are clearly 10 years ahead of us all. They were the first country to introduce Crew Resource Management as well and the first to highlight issues on the flight deck with over zealous and dictatorial Captains which have caused a lot of accidents or incidents resulting in loss of life. A clear example is the KLM/Pan Am disaster in Tenerife. If you look at this disaster, the Captain of the KLM was a total disk head in comparison to the American Crew who were far more professional in their approach. And the FO of the KLM was too scared to speak up. In contrast to the Pan Am crew who discussed everything like more or less equals and tackled their jobs with professionalism, displaying far better CRM and more of a team approach.

I got a lot of time for the yanks. When you hear their military pilots flying around, you understand they are clearly great ambassadors to their country. I had a group of USAF F-35 fly under me one time when they took off from RAAF Amberley headed for Woomera and conduct fire range exercises with the Aussies. Plus those accents...

Plus the US FAA regulator are far more pleasant to deal with as well than Australia’s CASA. Helpful and work with you not against you. Even if you did something wrong they are there to work with you and help you and rectify the situation constructively.

[Kikapu]

Then we conduct a Mayday or Pan pan call. I always opt for the pan pan as the plane never seems to fall out of the sky when I get these in the sim. United went for Mayday. Fair call there. The distinction is you are declaring an urgent emergency that is extremely urgent and requires activation of all emergency services as opposed to a mayday which does that and you are declaring that the aircraft is in grave danger that will result in loss of life or a crash. That might have been the pilots assessment initially which is why they went for mayday. Or they just wanted to use mayday because they didn’t want to hold back which is fair too. Or they got flustered at the time under the pressure which is AOK. Yes you do get flustered under pressure and the workload is intense which is y I don’t go to the radio immediately and prefer to control my plane as I feel this is the thing that will kill me snd other people. As for the controllers and my deviations, they can wait and get other planes out of my way. Which is what they would do in real life anyway. Then I talk to them when I’m ready for it.

Mayday Mayday was the right call here because this was not just the case of an engine flame out and just flying on one engine which could easily get back to the airport. This was the case of uncontrolled destruction of the engine which was still on fire and with large pieces falling apart and from the engine. My guess is the right seat pilot could not see anything from his seat and more than likely neither pilot left their seats at this time of emergency to go and take a look from the cabin. Most probably, a flight attendant took a look and relayed the information to the crew in the cockpit, and from the FA's point of view, the engine is totally destroyed, still on fire and shaking like a leaf about to fall off the wing completely, which then can go anywhere, including the engine striking the Horizontal stabilizers and /or the tail, ripping it/them off completely, in which case, the plane would have crashed 100%, so the possibility of life and death situation was very real and present with this situation.

No one would leave their seat. They can see the front part of the engine but poor FO would just look over his shoulder for a second and confirm, yep it’s on fire. No time to communicate with cabin crew and even if they tried it’s highly unlikely we would pick up the handset during vital actions.

Engines have fallen off before. It’s a distinct possibility when an engine shakes itself apart like that. But as long as there is no structural damage to the wing.

If the wing or horizontal or vertical stabilisers are damaged, then I’m afraid there is not much of a chance of survival.

Flight attendant’s seat on the right side entrance door is just ahead of the wing would have been looking directly at the right engine which would have had a clear view to what was happening. It would have been an important information to be passed onto the flight crew. I don’t know how much time lapsed from the time the flight crew knew that the engine was out to the time they put out the Mayday Mayday Mayday call. My guess, not immediately. More information the FC had on the condition of the engine, the more the reason putting out the Mayday call would have been, and that information had to come from a crew member in the cabin.

The important thing is, everyone did their jobs in the air and on the ground which the plane landed safely and everyone survived. Can’t ask more than that as far as the passengers are concerned. The rest of the details can be sorted out by United and crew, Boeing, FAA and the engine maker, Pratt & Whitney.

[Kikapu]

The Telegraph
Air travel will not return to normal levels for three years as OBR warns of slowdown similar to wake of 9/11


Tony Diver
Thu, March 4, 2021, 5:04 PM

2FF1B415-1742-4DA8-972D-64FC2E6A2FAC.jpeg

Air travel will not be back to normal levels for at least three years, the Government’s independent forecaster has said, as it warned the industry of a slowdown similar to the aftermath of 9/11.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said it may take until the 2024-25 financial year for air passenger traffic to reach its pre-pandemic levels - the same length of time it took passengers to have confidence in airlines after the Twin Towers attack in 2001.

“We continue to expect a gradual recovery in passenger numbers, similar in pace to that observed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, where US air passengers only exceeded pre-attack levels three years later,” the forecaster said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/air-travel-n ... 18970.html

[Londonrake]

I suspect that’s actually a difficult forecast to get right. Once this plague settles down to flu-like proportions and consequences I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an explosion (poor pun) in air travel.

Personally, I’ve flown on 11th September a couple of times since 2001 and always felt it was probably the safest day of the year to do so.

[Kikapu]

I suspect that’s actually a difficult forecast to get right. Once this plague settles down to flu-like proportions and consequences I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an explosion (poor pun) in air travel.

Personally, I’ve flown on 11th September a couple of times since 2001 and always felt it was probably the safest day of the year to do so.

Yes, of course it is a difficult forecast, but airlines around the world are not able to be very optimistic since Covid-19 will not go away and neither will it downgrade itself to being a flu-like proportions and consequences. The only possibility of getting back to some degree of normalIt’s is that we all have vaccination travel passes to be updated with booster shots every year or a Covid tests each time one flies, which will come at price as well as last minute trip cancelations at a cost should the Covid test is a positive a day before departure. We already know many millions of people will not want to be vaccinated, but also many millions of people won’t have the opportunity to be vaccinated around the world.

A little different than just flying on September 11th since 2001.

[Londonrake]

I think that’s being overly pessimistic but, either way, it’s fundamentally a matter of speculation at this stage. Best guess.

9/11 was incidental to all that of course.