ATC Denies Clearance For Emergency Landing

[mcrit]

It pays to use standard phraseology. In a lot of places English is the controllers second language, and some controllers may only understand aviation English. They are trained to respond to standard ICAO calls, so ‘Mayday’ and ‘Pan Pan’ are much more likely to get you what you need than ‘We have a problem’ and ‘Declaring Emergency’ when flying outside the Anglosphere.

[Colonel]

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday you dumb fucks, I'm inbound for immediate landing"

Good to remember.

Anyone remember the guy on the east coast, ATC wanted him to land with a
50 knot (or something like that) crosswind, so he declared an emergency? Couple
years back.

EDIT - found it:

http://www.nycaviation.com/2010/05/amer ... tower/9010

A snippity exchange between the crew of an American Airlines 767 and the Kennedy Airport control tower on Wednesday concluded when the plane made an emergency landing.

On May 5th, American Airlines Flight 2 from LAX was cleared to land on JFK‘s Runway 22L when the tower offered a wind update: “Wind now 3-2-0 at 2-3, gusting to 3-5.”

A few seconds later, one of the pilots responds, “American 2, we can’t land on 2-2. We’re breaking off approach, and if you don’t give us to, uhh, runway, uhh, 3-1-Right we’re going to declare an emergency.”

Tower: “Alright I will pass it along, fly runway heading for now.”

AA 2 heavy: “Okay, we’re declaring emergency, we’re gonna land 3-1-right. We’re going to the left and then coming around.”

Tower: “American 2 heavy, just fly runway heading.”

AA 2 heavy: “Clear the area.”

Tower: “You say you’re declaring emergency?”

AA 2 heavy: “Three times I’ve told you that. Three times we’re declaring an emergency.”

Tower: “Okay, I just want to verify, I know you said if you didn’t get 31-right you have to declare an emergency. Okay, understand, fly runway heading and I gotta get you a turn!”

Tower: “Fly heading 1-8-0”

AA 2 heavy: “American 2 heavy, we are turning around to the left here and landing on 3-1. Remove everybody from our way. We’ve declared an emergency. We’re on a visual.”

Tower: “Alright, American 2 heavy, cleared to land, 3-1-right, 3-1-0 2-4 gusting to 3-4.”

AA 2 heavy: “Cleared to land, runway 3-1-right, American 2 heavy.”

That @sshole in the tower would have been quite happy for them to run out of fuel and crash,
and did everything they could to try to stop that guy from landing safely.

Good job!

I think the problem is that ATC is underpaid.

the vast majority are paid between €300,000 – €600,000 annually.

Is it hard to make ends meet on that?

[David MacRay]

That’s perfect. See their paperwork doesn’t scare some of us.

My statement would be illegible and so poorly written it would make grade two students ask, “What’s wrong with the guy who wrote that?”

[Slick Goodlin]

A few seconds later, one of the pilots responds, “American 2, we can’t land on 2-2. We’re breaking off approach, and if you don’t give us to, uhh, runway, uhh, 3-1-Right we’re going to declare an emergency.”

That kind of begs the question, if you’re so certain an emergency is coming why wouldn’t you consider that situation to be happening right now and declare it as such?

[Liquid_Charlie]

When something unforeseen or not forecasted can really throw a wrench into things. Years ago we inbound to st petes and the winds in central florida went to 50 kts. The direction did not suit several main runways in the area, we just landed our 727 into wind on the xstrip 4000 ft long in st petes . t I think that was a stretch on paper but 50 kts into wind -- duh, no brainer for arctic pilots.

The rest didn't see it that way. There were so many diversions going on and min fuel being declared it made me realise how skinny on fuel everyone went on. It was entertaining but scary. All diverted safely and no small number count. I figure about 50 flights diverted at the time. A beautiful VFR day and a frozen mukluk boot to the ass.

Shit can go sideways so fast.