Well, I Declare

Ryan Motte

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

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Pilots often hesitate to declare emergencies due to fears of extensive paperwork, FAA investigations, or inconveniencing others, even when situations meet the "urgency" or "distress" criteria.
Declaring an emergency immediately activates comprehensive ATC assistance, including prioritizing the aircraft, clearing landing paths, and providing emergency services, while also granting the pilot in command authority to deviate from regulations as necessary for safety.
Concerns about FAA retribution or burdensome paperwork are often unfounded; mandatory occurrence reports (MORs) are primarily for safety data collection, and filing a NASA ASRS report can protect pilots from inadvertent violations.

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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.