Well, I Declare

Ryan Motte

Monday, July 26, 2021 at 10:04 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Many pilots hesitate to declare emergencies due to misplaced fears about paperwork, FAA retribution, or inconveniencing others, even when situations clearly warrant it.
Pilots are urged to declare an emergency at the first sign of an "urgency condition" (doubt about safety) rather than waiting for "distress," as this immediately activates vital ATC assistance and grants necessary operational privileges.
The post-declaration process, including ATC's mandatory reports and the pilot's optional NASA ASRS report, is primarily for safety data collection and trend monitoring, with the ASRS offering potential protection from enforcement, not solely for punitive action.

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I was recently listening to AOPA’s podcast There I Was… during my drive to work. For those who are not aware, it’s a podcast that invites us into the cockpit of aviators as they encounter unpredictable situations, and we learn from their experience to improve our own skills and aeronautical decision-making. After all, it is a lot cheaper to learn from others’ experiences and mistakes over going out and making them ourselves, right?

What inspired me to write this article was something I heard in three different episodes. Long story short, three different pilots were in situations that absolutely warranted declaring emergencies but elected not to do so. One that jumped out at me was a piston single with intermittent engine issues that ended up sequenced behind a regional jet and was lucky to walk away after the engine quit.