Some time ago, I wrote about what happens during an emergency in the tower. But wait. There’s more. Of course, few pilots have declared an emergency, and even fewer have actually had an incident or accident. Crashing an airplane is on nobody’s bucket list (I hope), however the probability of surviving a plane crash varies with the type of crash. If your gear collapses, you’ll probably survive. If you hit something while VFR in IMC, well, you might make the news. For the most part, the FAA has developed some pretty good response actions to assist pilots in need, and not just during an actual no-guano emergency.
Who Ya Gonna Call?
The number of people who find out about your distress starts with the controller you tell. From there it spreads to the whole room, which then spreads to a couple other rooms of people. Depending on location, the resources ATC has in place to assist in an emergency are good. Of course, if you are out in the middle of nowhere and start to have problems it’s best to let ATC know well before hand so they can monitor and send help.
