Mayday


Mayday:

Mayday is a internationally used procedural word in an air or sea emergency. It is given three times in a row to prevent being mistaken for a similar-sounding word, and to distinguish an actual Mayday call from a message about a Mayday call, according to Wikipedia.

The civilian aircraft radio emergency frequency used to make the call is 121.5. This radio frequency is monitored by air traffic control centers. If you are in an emergency and you call out Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! on your radio, you will be heard by someone at the nearest center.

If you are not in an emergency situation, and you inadvertently fly into Restricted or Prohibited airspace (and you would be really dumb and uninformed to do something like that), the center will also let you know, and you damn well better get out of there!

Currently, due to the tragic landslide near Arlington, Washington, private pilots are prohibited from flying in the airspace above it, in order to keep the air space clear for search-and-rescue type missions.

There are lots of occasions for restricted or prohibited air space, and a pilot's navigational instruments will alert him as to where they are. Once when President Obama flew into Seattle, flying in the airspace above the city was strictly prohibited. But I'm going off on a tangent, here ...  

Back to Mayday, the F.A.A. requires an E.L.T, an Emergency Locator Transmitter, to be installed in all civilian aircraft. In the event of a crash, the E.L.T. sends out a signal as to where the plane has gone down.

My husband even wears something called a SPOT on his belt. It's a Satellite GPS unit. Unlike the E.L.T, which transmits approximately where a plane has gone down, over a certain radius of miles, the SPOT knows exactly where something is.

The F.A.A. does not require pilots to have a SPOT unit. Many pilots do not use one because it involves an annual subscription. You pay for an E.L.T. only once, with no annual subscription rate.




Comments

  1. Sharon HimslApril 15, 2014 at 9:59 AM

    Scary to ever have to send out this call, but glad emergency procedures are in place. I'm thankful for the mandatory E.L.T. The SPOT unit is a great idea, too!
    Shells–Tales–Sails

    ReplyDelete
  2. L.G. KeltnerApril 15, 2014 at 2:56 PM

    Thanks for sharing this! This was quite interesting!

    -L.G. Keltner, minion in Captain Alex's Ninja Army
    http://lgkeltner.blogspot.com/
    http://warpednerdiversity.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kenda TurnerApril 15, 2014 at 4:16 PM

    Cathy, I think pilots are some of the bravest people ever. I'm not afraid of flying, have flown lots of times, but still this is what I think of when I hear the word 'mayday' :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. MelindaApril 15, 2014 at 7:05 PM

    I hope you never have to use this phrase!

    M : )

    ReplyDelete

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