@A&C: why PAN? Surely if there is a (detected, and perhaps detected erroneously) risk of life on board, one can and must call Mayday?
I always learned that PAN calls are for perceived danger NOT with one’s own plane, or its occupants.
But the difference might be trivial: I think everybody on the ground handle Pan to the same level of urgency as Mayday.
I always learned that PAN calls are for perceived danger NOT with one’s own plane, or its occupants.
That’s not quite correct.
Under ICAO both Pan and Mayday represent an emergency situation. The distinction is that a Mayday indicates that you require assistance from ATC, and a pan indicates that you do not require ATC’s assistance.
That UK has a slightly different definition (as the UK likes to do ;) ) with allows for both Mayday and Pan to require ATCs assistance, but the distinction being the urgency of the situation.
I think that Dublinpilot describes the difference very well.
The problem with calling mayday in a situation like this is it is quite likely to result in pilot overload, you would be amazed at the things ATC ask when you have this sort of passenger medical problem and the commander of the aircraft is usually best placed to decide on the best course of action.
PAN PAN it likely to result in a lower level of interference from ATC in the south of Europe but get you what you want, if you are in the northern half of Europe you can expect a high level of assistance whatever you call.
Reduce altitude immediately – there is more oxygen at 3000’ than 10,000’ (give them supplementary O2 if you have it), you can’t really tell whether the passenger is dead or not. Head for the nearest city airport that is likely to have a hospital nearby, just being on the ground doesn’t help too much if there are no emergency services.
In a small airplane this would be a very scary experience. Most of us have not seen that many dead people.
Under ICAO both Pan and Mayday represent an emergency situation. The distinction is that a Mayday indicates that you require assistance from ATC, and a pan indicates that you do not require ATC’s assistance.
I had in my mind (which means it isn’t the ICAO definition) that a PAN was a request for help, a Mayday was an urgent request for help. If you don’t require assistance then why say anything at all ? When I have practiced calling D&D on 121.5 for position fixing, I have always said “practise pan, practise pan”.
this would be a very scary experience. Most of us have not seen that many dead people.
I have seen a fair deal, including some badly wounded, and was surprised at my own ability to stomach the sight. But actively piloting, with someone next to me who is likely to be one of my few dearly beloved, and unsure whether alive or not, would be a zillion times harder. Uncertainty is the real killer. My emergency call would of course begin with all the required info about the plane (ooabc, position xyz, 1500, vfr, negative transponder) and intentions (I selected your field to land, runway xx, grass runway preferred) and all possible info about the unfortunate passenger (age, symptoms, what I tried…); but if enough wits were left, I would conclude with a secondary request for some secondary attention for the pilot, who might well be extremely high on adrenalin even if the landing went off perfectly.
what next,
if we are talking cardiac problems, the only thing which will work in such a tight spot is a defibrilator. While it is better if the patient is on the ground and stable, in a case of cases you can recline the seat as much as it can and let the defibrilator do the work. There are such devices which are specifically made for the use by laymen and in airplanes.
They need to be carried on airliners these days.
They need to be carried on airliners these days.
We get trained how to use them, but as of now, we are not yet required to have them on board. Until recently, we had to carry a portable oxygen cylinder, but this requirement no longer exists. If oxygen is available on board then it should be used on the ill/sick/dying person. We can manually drop the passenger oxygen masks. They don’t supply pure oxygen under pressure, which would be ideal, but anything is better then nothing.
Make it look like a natural death.
I’m not sure I want to fly with you if you have to do this very often 8-)
A little while ago, I was flying from Orlando to Britain after a conference. The cheapest flight was a charter flight that was full of kids coming back from Disneyland, myself and a couple with a very anxious lady who was trying to get the flight attendants to turn back to the gate, unload her suitcases, after which she would get a loan out and take the boat back. She had premonitions. The skies were blue, and the weather seemed absolutely perfect until we took off into the biggest group of thunderstorm cells I’ve ever seen.
We managed to keep out of clouds all the way, but the turbulence was stronger than anything I have experienced before or since. We had seconds of weightlessness followed by periods of high-G. The pilot was doing steep banked turns in order to avoid individual stormclouds, and the wingtips were flexing up and down several feet. I was thoroughly enjoying the ride, as were the kids who – having all just come back from Disneyland seemed to think it was all part of the fun. Whee! Yeeha! Suddenly I remembered the anxious lady and looked over to see how she was… Grey. Slumped. Lifeless.
She had just fainted and was fine, but stayed that way for some time – normally if you faint you collapse to the ground; the blood flows back to your brain and you come round. If you remain seated – e.g. because of a harness – then it can take much longer for you to recover.
I would wager that it is far more common for grey, slumped and lifeless passengers to have simply fainted than actually have had anything life threatening happen to them. I say that partly because I am fairly certain that if anyone should study it, they’d find it to be true. And secondly because it might make things psychologically easier for the pilot to assume that their nearest and dearest has fainted rather than actually died.
