Mayday call of Qantas flight after an engine failure
Photo: 123RF
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! What does this actually mean?
‘Mayday!’ when repeated 3 times with details and broadcasted over the radio is a cry for help in a life-threatening situation.
In days gone by, radio communications could be bad and any distress call must therefore be clear to prevent it from being mistaken from some similar sounding phrases under noisy conditions.
As such, the officer-in-charge of radio in the 1920s at Croydon Airport England cleverly came up with a word that was easily understood by all during an emergency. As flights were plying between London and Paris then, he chose ‘Mayday’ as it was the phonetic equivalent of French m’aidez, meaning “help me!”
Over time ‘Mayday’ has become an International radio distress signal by aircraft
In my flying career, I have never resorted to making a Mayday call except during training to address something more like a life and death situation.
Once declared, it means the emergency aircraft is requesting top priority from the ATC (Air Traffic Control). ATC would then do whatever is necessary to aid the plane with minimum loss of life.
On 18 January 2023, a Qantas Boeing 737-800 from Auckland to Sydney declared a Mayday call after the loss of one engine about an hour from the destination.
Mayday is not normally declared in an engine failure situation as a plane is not in great imminent danger.
While in-flight engine failure is rare, the B737-800 was designed to fly for an extended period on one engine. So, the emergency does not warrant a Mayday call unless it was on fire.
Instead, a lower distress, ‘Pan! Pan!’, repeated 3 times, would be the appropriate call to declare. ‘Pan’ originated from French ‘panne’, meaning malfunction. Indeed, the Qantas flight eventually downgraded it to a ‘Pan’ call.
However, if a plane is caught with a low fuel situation, the captain can declare “MAYDAY FUEL”. This is an explicit statement meaning that priority handling by ATC is both required and expected.
Unfortunately, the captain of Avianca Flight 052 on January 25 1990 did not declare a fuel emergency. His Boeing 707 then ran out of fuel and crashed after a failed attempt to land at JF Kennedy Airport.
In 2011 a Qatar Airways Boeing 777 declared a fuel emergency over Shanghai and asked for an immediate landing when the captain estimated that he would land with less than 30 minutes of fuel in its tanks.
Interestingly, a South Korean captain flying for a Shanghai-based airlines would have none of that. He decided to refuse ATC’s instructions to give way six times in a time frame of seven minutes. His excuse was that he was also low on fuel.
During an Inquiry, it was shown that the captain had more than 40 minutes of fuel left as compared to the Qatari Boeing 777 with less than 20 minutes
Making a false distress call is an offence. Needless to say, that captain got fired and banned from flying in China for life!
See a YouTube video Qantas flight QF144 issues mayday alert on approach to Sydney Airport from Auckland
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnnQRgJ8Iow
See a YouTube video Out of Fuel Over New York (Avianca Flight 52)