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Air Canada Flight Ac1174 Mayday


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I wonder what the problem was?


Air Canada Flight AC1174 mayday ends in safe landing

None of the 93 people on board were injured on flight from Edmonton to Toronto


An Air Canada flight from Edmonton to Toronto on Sunday morning landed safely after the pilot declared a mayday.

The aircraft was on its final approach to Pearson airport when the pilot told air traffic control that he had to abandon the planned landing because of "flight control" issues.

Police were alerted at 6:30 a.m. ET., and set up a staging area with officers and ambulances on standby, according to Const. Fiona Thivierge with Peel Regional Police.


The plane circled over Lake Ontario until it determined it was safe to land.

"They landed without incident, fortunately,” Thivierge said.


Thivierge said she did not know the specific problems with the Airbus 320 plane.


None of the 93 people on board were injured, the airline and police said.


Flight AC1174 left Edmonton at 1:10 a.m. MT and arrived in Toronto at 7 a.m. ET.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/air-canada-flight-ac1174-mayday-ends-in-safe-landing-1.2712504?cmp=rss
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Rich and J.O.:

Had to go back and listen twice, but I'm pretty sure that it's two different ladies that I work with. We don't want to add to the cockpit workload with more frequency changes than necessary, so we're usually shipping other traffic to a different frequency, not the affected aircraft.

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Great work by both aircrew and ATC. There is NO PROBLEM declaring a Mayday. Several companies I've worked for in the past have diminished the need for the call - it seemed it cast dispersions on the company.

For Pete's Sake!

You need attention and immediate assistance? Take It!

For all you young and upcoming flight crewmembers - there is no shame in asking for help.

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Further to the suggestion of changing frequencies - I think it is a "situation dictates" decision by the Controller to ask for this. Keeping the distressed aircraft on the frequency keeps all other aircraft in the loop; the Controller still has other responsibilities to these other aircraft. And we all know what happens when an aircraft in distress switches to another frequency:... we ALL do, to listen in on what's going on. Which then puts US at some risk.

Best keep everything together and let the Controller sort it.

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Does anyone know what the "significant flight control problems" were and what was done?

Out of curiosity as well what was the Fin Number?

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I read elsewhere that it was more than just a slat jam. Thrust control issues and confusing warnings were also involved. Sort of sounds like a healthy LOFT session. Well done to the crew and to ATC for the way it was handled.

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Agreed, very nice work, cool and professional by all involved. I'm also thinking there must have been more to this than a jammed slat (unless something about 'bus's fly-by-wire magic makes that much more difficult or dangerous). It would be interesting to know, as what I heard, other than the use of "Mayday", was a crew calmly and crisply dealing with an abnormality, including exploiting the priority and assistance required (and delivered) from ATC.

It is striking, tho', how efficiently a more formal radio call initiates things, compared to a mouthful about "declaring an emergency" or any other more verbose request for priority, But, I wonder if "Mayday" shouldn't be reserved for the life-threatening situations for which it's intended (sorry, Moon'). "Mayday" is loaded with the implication of danger, and with scanners out there listening to everything, the hyper-ventilated reaction to its use, from pax and public, in more 'handle-able' abnormals, is as predictable as it is unwarranted. Perhaps bringing "Pan" back into use would be a good idea.

Cheers, IFG :b:

p.s. In case it's not clear, my prattling about "Mayday" & "Pan" was taking up Moontheloon's suggestions above, and in no way intended as criticism of this crew. As I & others state, there was clearly much about the incident not revealed in the audio posted, and still unknown by most of us. Any report will be interesting reading.

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...It would be interesting to know, as what I heard, other than the use of "Mayday", was a crew calmly and crisply dealing with an abnormality, including exploiting the priority and assistance required (and delivered) from ATC.

From the start, I have wondered the same thing.

Is Pan not used at all anymore?

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IFG, there was much more to it than just a frozen slat. The folks were textbook cool and their call very appropriate. I guarantee you that at many airlines around the world, where real flying skills are minimal, this would have been a disaster, and therefore Mayday was appropriate. Instead, the boys did some outside the box thinking. A job very well done which doesn't require your second guessing, no one could have done it better.

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IFG, there was much more to it than just a frozen slat. The folks were textbook cool and their call very appropriate. I guarantee you that at many airlines around the world, where real flying skills are minimal, this would have been a disaster, and therefore Mayday was appropriate. Instead, the boys did some outside the box thinking. A job very well done which doesn't require your second guessing, no one could have done it better.

Cool your jets, ac'! There was NO second-guessing here, only accolades, and of course curiosity (still BTW), as the additional difficulties were not alluded to in the .mpg file. Mayday discussion was directed towards Moon's suggestions.

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I think that the use of PAN-PAN is now rarely used because sim procedures/instructors have whittled it away. The usual phrase usually goes something like "If things aren't normal, it's better to call a MAYDAY and be overdoing it than to screw around with a PAN [sic]." usually followed by "If you only declare a PAN, you don't get any special handling". Really? While there is no requirement for special handling from ATC, I would suggest that it would be forthcoming unless it was creating a more dangerous situation. After all, ATC gives preferential treatment to Medivac flights without any indication of the severity of the patient's condition. They're not even operating under PAN-PAN. And it is acceptable to ask for the trucks to be standing by even if you have not declared a MAYDAY.

The problem, of course is that, as soon as you call a MAYDAY, somebody hits that big RED BUTTON and not only do airport fire services get the call, but external fire departments and ambulances are dispatched and hospitals are put on alert... who knows what happens there?.... do they cancel elective surgeries or call in doctors and nurses so that operating rooms are free and staffed? Are we reducing external emergency response capability when we call a MAYDAY? Is somebody going to get an ambulance 3 minutes later for their heart attack because we've called a MAYDAY because the normally-closest one for them is now sitting in the airport standby area with 50 others? I don't know. Does anyone here know for sure?

There is some value to the "less than normal" position. In modern training operandi, we aren't taught enough about the aircraft to make an initial assessment of the gravity of some situations. We are taught to "use the checklists". Sure, we know enough that if we lose just on hydraulic system or a generator that it's probably not going to be all that bad. And we know if we have an engine insisting on its right to be on fire, it's probably not going to be all that good. But stuff in between, especially flight controls that are controlled primarily by computers, it's probably not going to be all that good, either.

Getting into direct law in an Airbus once the gear is down is not a good time to be worried if you're going to have to go around. Declaring a MAYDAY helps to ensure, but doesn't guarantee, that a go-around won't happen due to somebody else's decision or choice, as our severe-turbulence-over-the-rockies crew found out when they approached Calgary and almost had to do a go-around when ATC cleared a Transat aircraft to position.

And breaking off an approach in a busy terminal area with a flight control problem is probably not one of those "good times", either. So, with as much information as I have about the situation, I think a MAYDAY was the right call in this case. Not that they needed my approval.

Neither situation really calls for the textbook "Grave and imminent danger", implying that someone is probably going to die or a crash is imminent, such as in Sully's landing, but "this could be a grave-and-imminent-danger situation if things get any worse" probably qualifies for a MAYDAY, too, IMO.

What about an engine shutdown? My aircraft is certified for some carriers to fly 5 1/2 hours on one engine with very very very low odds that the other will fail. If it's not a fuel problem, flying around for 20 minutes shouldn't be considered an emergency. If I don't have 100 tonnes of fuel on board, the climb and go-around performance of the aircraft will beat almost every other aircraft out there. And landing with an engine out is no worse than a medium crosswind in almost any airliner. But we always call a MAYDAY for this. I saw WestJet's single engine landing on TV tonight with an engine out and I'd say that landing was one any of us would be proud of. Certainly not what the movies would show as an aircraft in distress. Where was all of the ground-looping and screeching of tires and parts falling off the aircraft?

I do think we are led into a MAYDAY mentality in the sim, though, where we seem to be encouraged to call one with the smallest malfunction. And why wouldn't you call one in the sim?... you can't be second guessed if you take the most conservative path. But that also trains us to call a MAYDAY at the proverbial drop of a hat.

Fortunately, MAYDAYs don't get called all that often. If they did, it might lead to a "Cry Wolf" mentality with ATC or external emergency services.

So, while I'm not personally spring loaded to call one, I wouldn't hesitate to do so if it's a toss-up or if things stop going my way. I just don't think it is as simple as the "things are less than normal, so call a MAYDAY".

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Excellent post Dave.

I would add that an initial call can be upgraded or downgraded at any time. If initial indications warrant a Mayday call, then by all means use it. If you're able to restore of some sense of normalcy, you can always downgrade it to a PAN or cancel it altogether. You can also bump it up if your PAN turns out to be a Mayday after all.

In the end it all comes down to our procedures, our training and our gut instinct. I've done a flapless landing in an A320 and we didn't call PAN or Mayday. We broke off the approach, advised ATC and asked for the emergency services to be standing by. Both of us were experienced ACPs on the airplane and we'd both seen it dozens of times in the simulator. We ran the checklist by the book (it is excessively wordy IMHO) and landed without further incident.

I will admit that when I first heard the recording, I thought that the Mayday call was more than necessary, but I didn't say anything because I didn't have all the facts. Problems with thrust control and secondary (i.e. confusing) warnings as this AC crew apparently had definitely warranted their call, IMHO. They were dealing with something that is not "in the book". Best to have all your resources lined up in such cases.

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