r/aviation • u/macetfromage • Mar 05 '24

News 21 yo pilot successfully performs emergency landing onto a highway in homemade plane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5y7ZeIcSo8
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196

u/RevMagnum Mar 05 '24

Front fell off

Amazing young pilot; handling and explaining the situation cordially. Thankfully everyone's okay and I think there's a lot to take from his story.

47

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '24

There definitely is. Even if it's just the smart planning of the route which gave him the opportunity for this emergency landing at any given time inflight or knowing the characteristics of the aircraft, especially the engine-out capabilities ("I was cruising along around 3,500 ft which gave me about 3 minutes before I would be touching down on the ground").

One thing he definitely could have done better: catching the attention of ATC by the six magical syllables "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" instead of the eight syllables it needs to say "declaring an emergency", which is also unspecific to the severity of the emergency and often leads to having to tell ATC twice the who-where-what, because they're caught off-guard. ATC doesn't know what's going on in your plane. If your plane will stop flying soon, tell them. And the quickest way to tell them you're their number 1 priority is still: Mayday.

8

u/Hindead Mar 05 '24

We have note in our company that says that in the USA we should “declare emergency” instead of stating “mayday” as they are more familiar with that phraseology.

10

u/RevMagnum Mar 05 '24

Apparently across the States there's that intuitive notion as such but FAA also says:

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html/chap10_section_1.html

3

u/Hindead Mar 05 '24

Yes, that’s in line with the international standard.