Does this situation really require the emergency equipment

[Bede]

So please...if you have a significant issue, declare an emergency. But if it is minor stuff that does not significantly decrease the level of safety, fly and land the aircraft in a normal manner instead of worrying about how bored the emergency vehicle drivers are. If they are bored, that is a good thing.

As time goes on, people seem to be coming up with more and more reasons to declare an emergency for less and less significant situations. Think about the occasional time in your career when for whatever reason, you were tight on fuel and you would really rather not go-around. It does happen. The last thing one needs on this rare occasion is having to go-around because the aircraft ahead declared an emergency or had an emergency declared for them by ATC because their auto-brake was inop for a landing on a 10,000 foot runway or some other insignificant reason.

Exactly. The same thing happens with the 911. Remember when 911 came out and there was a big public service campaign about how it was for emergencies only. Now people call 911 for every minor thing- smoke alarms going off (no smoke or other signs of fire), minor medical ailments (generally unwell). And now people are dying because we're running out of ambulances.

[pelmet]

C-FFJA, a Jazz Aviation LP MHI RJ Aviation ULC CRJ200 was conducting flight JZA869 from
Ottawa/McDonald Cartier Intl. (CYOW), ON to Washington/Ronald Reagan NTL (KDCA), DC.
Aircraft departed CYOW with a Right thrust reverser inoperative and put on minimum equipment
list (MEL). During cruise, Flight crew received a STALL FAIL caution indication. QRH was
completed and Maintenance was advised. The flight crew calculated the landing distance as
landing weight was just under max landing weight. The QRH states that the landing distance is to
be increased by 25% plus a 10kt addition to Vref speed for a STALL FAIL condition. Runway 19
length at DCA is 7,169 ft. As the calculated landing distance exceeded runway length, it was
decided due to the weather conditions, wet runway, and maintenance issues that the flight would
divert to Washington Dulles Intl. (KIAD), DC. Upon being vectored to KIAD, Potomac Approach
declared for themselves the emergency. ATC was informed that the diversion was due to their
performance issues stemming from the maintenance issues with the aircraft and that it was not an
emergency. An ILS approach was conducted at KIAD for runway 19 Left and an uneventful landing
completed. Fire trucks met the aircraft upon landing and inspected the brakes and exterior of the
aircraft.

[tower controller]

Another factor to consider is everyone is assuming the CFR guys are in the hall unless they’re responding to an emergency. They aren’t always, they could be scattered around the airport doing fire inspections, gone off somewhere on a medical call, or worse case scenario live fire training. An empty fire truck isn’t much good in an emergency. I routinely would advise CFR on minor situations just to ensure they weren’t doing something that would impact their readiness if I ended up sounding the alarm.

[J31]

So please...if you have a significant issue, declare an emergency. But if it is minor stuff that does not significantly decrease the level of safety, fly and land the aircraft in a normal manner instead of worrying about how bored the emergency vehicle drivers are. If they are bored, that is a good thing.

As time goes on, people seem to be coming up with more and more reasons to declare an emergency for less and less significant situations. Think about the occasional time in your career when for whatever reason, you were tight on fuel and you would really rather not go-around. It does happen. The last thing one needs on this rare occasion is having to go-around because the aircraft ahead declared an emergency or had an emergency declared for them by ATC because their auto-brake was inop for a landing on a 10,000 foot runway or some other insignificant reason.

Exactly. The same thing happens with the 911. Remember when 911 came out and there was a big public service campaign about how it was for emergencies only. Now people call 911 for every minor thing- smoke alarms going off (no smoke or other signs of fire), minor medical ailments (generally unwell). And now people are dying because we're running out of ambulances.

Bede, normally you have a balanced view but I am going to call you on this one. You are entitled to your opinion, but that is a stretch that people are dying because we are running out of ambulances due to abuse of 911 calls! Really! Stats?

The focus on 911 started in the late 1960's.

[digits_]

Another factor to consider is everyone is assuming the CFR guys are in the hall unless they’re responding to an emergency. They aren’t always, they could be scattered around the airport doing fire inspections, gone off somewhere on a medical call, or worse case scenario live fire training. An empty fire truck isn’t much good in an emergency. I routinely would advise CFR on minor situations just to ensure they weren’t doing something that would impact their readiness if I ended up sounding the alarm.

How should one consider that factor? Not entirely sure why that's relevant or how we can deal with that.

[RoAF-Mig21]

Plus it gives the fire crews a reason to tear around the airfield at high speed in their trucks and be ready on the spot just in case they're needed. You'll never hear any of them complain about that, and we won't either in case, you know...they're needed.

Not really a good reason to get them out. Sure, planned training scenarios are one thing, but a response like that "just to give the first responders something to do" is not warranted. Remember that LATAM thing that happened a few weeks ago? The point is... don't give yourself extra headache if it's not required. The less vehicles move around an airport, the safer it is. (So I think)...

Then again, I'm not an ATC... I don't pretend I know their job. I know what they do when they interact with us...

[tsgarp]

[quote=Rockie post_id=<a href="tel:1013009">1013009</a> time=<a href="tel:1505865969">1505865969</a> user_id=5632]
Plus it gives the fire crews a reason to tear around the airfield at high speed in their trucks and be ready on the spot just in case they're needed. You'll never hear any of them complain about that, and we won't either in case, you know...they're needed.

Not really a good reason to get them out. Sure, planned training scenarios are one thing, but a response like that "just to give the first responders something to do" is not warranted. Remember that LATAM thing that happened a few weeks ago? The point is... don't give yourself extra headache if it's not required. The less vehicles move around an airport, the safer it is. (So I think)...

Then again, I'm not an ATC... I don't pretend I know their job. I know what they do when they interact with us...
[/quote]

You realize your responding to a 5 year old post by a guy that was banned 3 years ago, right?

[tsgarp]

[quote=Rockie post_id=<a href="tel:1013009">1013009</a> time=<a href="tel:1505865969">1505865969</a> user_id=5632]
Plus it gives the fire crews a reason to tear around the airfield at high speed in their trucks and be ready on the spot just in case they're needed. You'll never hear any of them complain about that, and we won't either in case, you know...they're needed.

Not really a good reason to get them out. Sure, planned training scenarios are one thing, but a response like that "just to give the first responders something to do" is not warranted. Remember that LATAM thing that happened a few weeks ago? The point is... don't give yourself extra headache if it's not required. The less vehicles move around an airport, the safer it is. (So I think)...

Then again, I'm not an ATC... I don't pretend I know their job. I know what they do when they interact with us...

You realize youkre responding to a 5 year old post by a guy that was banned 3 years ago, right?
[/quote]

[Bede]

Bede, normally you have a balanced view but I am going to call you on this one. You are entitled to your opinion, but that is a stretch that people are dying because we are running out of ambulances due to abuse of 911 calls! Really! Stats?

The focus on 911 started in the late 1960's.

I don't have any stats, only anecdotal evidence. I serve on our municipal volunteer fire department as both a fire fighter and first responder. We respond to all medical 911 calls in our municipality. Of these, I'd estimate that 50% need to make an appointment with their family doctor within a few days, 40% need to go to the ER, but would be ok to just have someone drive them (don't need paramedics), 5% are dead, and 5% need the emergent services of the paramedic service. Our municipality is serviced by the city's paramedic service. They have a base in our rural municipality as well as a number of bases in other municipalities (in addition to the city bases). It is becoming increasingly common for us to wait with the patient for close to an hour as an ambulance drives from another municipality to ours because "our" ambulance is tied up doing something else. Fortunately, I have only ever been on these calls that are non-urgent, but I am worried that one day one of the emergent patients will not have access to an ambulance because it's busy on another call.

As for 911, I remember when we got 911 service in our city (Kitchener). I was probably around 7-8. It was some time in the mid-late '80's. I do recall the PSA about it's use. I also remember my dad calling 911 to tell the police that there was an issue with the train track. He figured the police should know. He was told it wasn't an emergency and he shouldn't be calling that number.

[digits_]

50% need to make an appointment with their family doctor within a few days

Do they have one? Would they be able to see one if they had one?

IMO that's the root cause of 911 and ER abuse: it's the only option left.

Last month I wanted to get something medically checked out. My family doctor moved out of the community -again-. And of course no other doctor 'was accepting new patients'. Took me 8 days to find someone willing to make an appointment, partially because half of them apparently don't answer phones anymore and take days to reply to voicemails. Eventually it was 2 weeks between 'I would like to see a doctor' and a nurse practioner looking at me. Another doctor offered a 'meet and greet' one month later, but wouldn't have time to check out my issue at that time, only 'meet' me. WTF.

I was very close to going to the ER, for a non-urgent issue which worried me, simply because it was the only option left. I can imagine that after spending 5-6 hours in an ER a few times, that as soon as I have an issue that could somewhat morally be considered urgent or potentially life threatening, that I might be quite tempted to just call an ambulance, pay the fee, and get it over with.

[RoAF-Mig21]

You realize your responding to a 5 year old post by a guy that was banned 3 years ago, right?

I did not. LMAO. Thanks for that. Hahaha. Don't I feel dumb now? (Yes, I do)

[Bede]

I was very close to going to the ER, for a non-urgent issue which worried me, simply because it was the only option left. I can imagine that after spending 5-6 hours in an ER a few times, that as soon as I have an issue that could somewhat morally be considered urgent or potentially life threatening, that I might be quite tempted to just call an ambulance, pay the fee, and get it over with.

Yes but you didn't call 911.

[digits_]

I was very close to going to the ER, for a non-urgent issue which worried me, simply because it was the only option left. I can imagine that after spending 5-6 hours in an ER a few times, that as soon as I have an issue that could somewhat morally be considered urgent or potentially life threatening, that I might be quite tempted to just call an ambulance, pay the fee, and get it over with.

Yes but you didn't call 911.

Not yet. Add 10 more years of grumpiness and we'll see

[rigpiggy]

Had a no gear indication many years back. Troubleshot it for an hour in the hold, then went back to yhz. They asked if declaring the emergency,", not right now ". Did emergency gear extension checklist with gear actually working, just no indication. Asked for equipment to standby from beacon inbound" that's ok we already had them out" landed, taxied to gate. Put in pins, sent to mx. 2 days to find broken wires in the PRC kluge. No press, no fuss, and if there had been an issue my butt would have been on the line for not asking for the equipment

[pelmet]

C-FENO, a WestJet Encore Limited De Havilland Aircraft of Canada DHC-8-402 (Dash 8 Q400),
was operating as flight WEN3540 from Kamloops (CYKA), BC, to Calgary International (CYYC),
AB, with 4 crew members and 67 passengers on board. During the takeoff roll, the “YD
DISENGAGED” message illuminated just after 80 knots. The crew rejected the take-off, and a
MAYDAY emergency was declared with air traffic control. After exiting the runway, the emergency
was canceled. No one was injured and there was no damage to the aircraft.
After actioning the quick reference handbook, the yaw damper appeared to re-engage. The crew
reported this to company maintenance, and it was decided the aircraft could continue in operation.

[pelmet]

From TSB.....

N662FE, a Federal Express Corporation Airbus A300-600, was conducting a flight from Memphis
International Airport (KMEM), USA, to Edmonton International Airport (CYEG), AB, with 2 flight
crew onboard. During the in-range computation for landing data, the flight crew found that the
Aircraft Performance Software (APS) would not compute valid landing information with an OAT of
colder than -40 degrees Celsius. The crew reviewed the aircraft flight manual and determined that
the aircraft is capable in landing at temperatures as cold as -60 degrees Celsius. After consulting
with dispatch the crew declared an emergency and opted to continue to CYEG. The aircraft landed
without further incident at CYEG.

Imagine you are really tight on fuel with the weather coming down(ice fog, perhaps) and some emergency is delaying you because of this. This is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about when it comes to unnecessary emergency declarations.

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 8#p1013518

[atc_is_god]

Unless there is a clear and imminent threat to the airplane, there is no reason to advise ATC of annunciators or the state of equipment on the airplane.

Most controllers aren't pilots, and certainly those who are likely have no idea of the significance of a specific condition unless they're checked out on the airplane.

They may hear "something's abnormal" and assume the crew are reluctant to declare an emergency, and will then do it on the crew's behalf.

At the end of the day there's very little ATC can do to help in most scenarios, other than perhaps expediting an aircraft's arrival under circumstances where that will actually make a difference (fuel shortage, fire on board).

[lownslow]

Imagine you are really tight on fuel with the weather coming down(ice fog, perhaps) and some emergency is delaying you because of this.

I would question why I wasn’t considering my alternate or if this was my alternate why ATC didn’t know of my dire situation.

[pelmet]

Imagine you are really tight on fuel with the weather coming down(ice fog, perhaps) and some emergency is delaying you because of this.

I would question why I wasn’t considering my alternate or if this was my alternate why ATC didn’t know of my dire situation.

Maybe ATC does and you are number 2 emergency behind the first one to declare. Or you may be considering your alternate for a totally unnecessary reason.....a complete non-emergency being used to declare an emergency.

Even from a convenience point of view, as a passenger, i don't feel like going to an alternate and maybe missing a connecting flight overseas because someone declared an emergency for no valid reason.

Seriously.....what pilots on this forum would declare an emergency for the reason FedEx did?