Communicate an Emergency Clearly.

[rookiepilot]

Human Nature tends to want to downplay, delay communicating the seriousness of a problem.........ambiguity won't help a pilot deal with an emergency.

GA accidents....all of which where clear communication, perhaps a touch of assertiveness, may have saved the day......

There is perhaps a large element of "ATC pleasing" in the last 2....

I find the psychological factors of accidents interesting....rather sad too.

Smoke in the cockpit:
https://www.flyingmag.com/story/pilot-p ... unication/

Low Fuel / Weather:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fLlWf-Fk_YM

Icing over the mountains:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aRSqLHw_6po

[RedAndWhiteBaron]

The low fuel video reminds me of Avianca Flight 52 - caused by fuel exhaustion and a failure, on both the pilots' and controllers' parts, to communicate/understand that there was an emergency. 73 souls were lost in that crash.

[bcflyer]

Don’t be afraid to use the words Mayday or Pan Pan. Makes your situation clear to everyone.

[pelmet]

I know of two situations recently where pilots of actual damaged aircraft did not declare an emergency even though they had time to do so. One of them landed at an uncontrolled airport. The last thing either one of them needed was to have to go around or needlessly maneuver due to another aircraft getting in the way that would have otherwise moved or been been moved out of the way.

In addition, a Unicom/flight school operator or anyone else for that matter at an uncontrolled airport may be able to get firefighting equipment nearby for an aircraft with controllability issues.