Mayday-Mayday-Mayday! Emirates 229 heavy.
What you have there is an Emirates Boeing triple 7
that's making its very short 14 and a half hour flight from Dubai to Seattle.
But then they had to divert because of strong winds
up to our neighbors of the north in Vancouver.
Watch what happens.
08L ATIS Foxtrot and understand you're minimum fuel.
Confirm it's the runway 08L for us, Emirates 229?
That is correct! Runway 08L, I can offer you the right side if you'd like.
Whatever you want.
Mayday-Mayday-Mayday! Emirates 229 heavy,
We have Mayday fuel and we require runway 08R.
Okay! I check the Mayday, Emirates. Just plan runway 08R
and I have the vectors for you very shortly here
Emirates 229 heavy, thank you!
And Emirates 229, are you in need of immediate landing?
Affirmative, Emirates 229 heavy
Two extremely important things to know when it comes to fuel regarding aviation
is a minimum fuel call and a Mayday fuel call.
Big difference.
I recently had a flight that I was doing. I don't know.
Well, maybe it was about a year ago.
We were going from JFK out to Korea.
And the way that our flight plan was that
it was going to be pretty tight on fuel.
And we all talked about it. The four of us pilots, we talked and decided,
okay, let's go.
When we're getting over there
if we get over Japan
and we see that it's just going to be too tight on the fuel
that we have any doubts about the weather
or anything about getting in there,
or it seems like we're going to be too low on fuel.
No big deal.
Would have to stop in Japan.
Get gas and probably go to the hotel.
But what we ended up doing was declaring minimum fuel,
which is what this pilot had done here.
08L ATIS Foxtrot and understand you're minimum fuel.
When we got onto the approach control of Incheon, which is in South Korea,
we told them right when we checked in
minimum fuel.
And when we did that,
the controller recognized the situation and saying,
okay, great.
There's this approach when you're going into...
In China it's this very long snaky style approach that you get in there.
And that's to allow them to bring in a lot of different traffic
at different points.
So it's smart from that aspect,
but when you're low on fuel,
it's not what you want to be doing.
So when we declared our minimum fuel,
we basically have to cut the line and get in and land.
And it was not a big deal.
We landed, we were fine.
We never declared a Mayday fuel.
When you declare a Mayday fuel, it's a little bit different.
It means you're planning to land with less than 30 minutes of gas.
And that is a very uncomfortable feeling that this pilot does right here.
Mayday-Mayday-Mayday! Emirates 229 heavy.
We have Mayday fuel and we require runway 08R.
So that's an automatic.
Whenever you look down and you load up everything into your computer
and it says,
Hey, you're going to be landing with less than 30 minutes,
there's no debate about it.
It's immediately.
The call is Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, fuel.
And the reason that it's very important to use it in that exact way
is because in different parts of the world,
English isn't going to be their first language.
So if you start saying,
Hey, we're running low on gas.
They may not get what you're saying.
If let's say you're flying over China,
that's obviously not going to be their first language is English.
So you say something like we're running low on gas.
They may think running and gas station.
They may not put it all together.
So it's important the phraseology
and that's why I always talk about how important that it is to develop
those good habits saying
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, fuel.
Anywhere in the world, any air traffic controller
regardless of how good their language is
or their grasp of English is going to go
Mayday. Okay.
You've got my attention.
And then after that,
you're going to say the thing that's happening fuel.
Now they know,
Hey, this is really important.
We need to get this person on the ground as fast as possible.
Everybody else is waiting.
This plane is going to get the priority handling
to get on the ground as quickly as possible.
Now I have one time that I was sitting,
I believe in it was in Austin
when I was flying corporate years ago.
That exact situation happened.
We weren't declaring the Mayday fuel,
but we were sitting getting ready to take off.
And the United plane had declared the Mayday fuel.
And we ended up sitting there probably like 20 minutes.
And I remember thinking like,
man, I could easily have taken off and been long gone by now,
but they didn't want to risk that because let's say
I take off and then I blow an engine.
Well, there's only two runways.
Well, there was at the time two runways there.
So if I'd take off from Austin and then we blow an engine,
then they're going to have a real situation
because now they're down to only one functioning runway.
So they just had to sit there for about 20 minutes
until this plane came in and landed.
And it was a little bit irritating but at the same side,
I know that if I were up there flying and I'm Mayday fuel,
well, I'm not going to want to have some person taking off ahead of me.
They do that in the simulator a lot, when you're in the sim
and they're giving you all these difficult scenarios deal with.
One of them is,
is that when you have a 747, you have an engine failure on one,
you're coming back around to land with only three engines.
And then sometimes they'll put a plane on the runway and you're thinking like,
what controller would do that when you've just blown your engine?
But it's just a scenario that
one of the scenarios that they give you.
So in real life,
we ended up sitting short of that runway.
So these guys could land in there
wasn't ever a problem for that United plane to come in.
So that's what happens in the real world when you declare a Mayday fuel.
Everything stops, this plane's coming in and it doesn't really matter.
There's no emergency for taking off
but there's an emergency if you run out of gas.
Now he doesn't say it exactly like I say it,
but listen to his phraseology here.
Mayday-Mayday-Mayday! Emirates 229 heavy,
We have Mayday fuel
Sadly there have been crashes that happened because the pilots were nervous or
they didn't want to expose the fact that they had made a mistake
and got themselves in this bad situation.
So this pilot and this crew of Emirates did exactly the right thing.
They loaded it.
They looked, they said,
okay, we're, I don't know, 28 minutes or 30 minutes.
That's all the gas that we have.
And that's what we're expected to be landing with.
Okay. That's it.
It's a Mayday. There's no question.
There's never going to be a debate amongst the pilots like,
well, what do you do?
You want to declare the Mayday?
No, it's an automatic.
Everybody knows.
So this crew did exactly the right thing.
It's not like something had changed.
Originally, they were minimum fuel,
I guess when they loaded the approach and put everything in there,
their computer spit it back and said,
Hey, you're going to be landing with this amount of fuel left.
And they knew right there, it was a Mayday situation.
And this was kind of a weird question for me with air traffic control.
And Emirates 229, are you in need of immediate landing?
Like to me, if I'm a controller and a pilot just declares Mayday fuel,
it'd be strange to be asking like,
do you need to land immediately?
Like, you know, you're going to see in a minute why he was asking those questions,
but I think it could have been done a lot better
because obviously they want to land immediately.
They have less than 30 minutes and they just declared a Mayday fuel situation.
You're about to see what he was asking here.
Okay! Would you like to land at Victoria airport? It's about 10-15 miles closer.
Negative. We are set up for Vancouver. We'll go to Vancouver.
Okay, thanks! Emirates 229, I just want to be clear here.
I can offer you either Abbotsford airport and Victoria airport.
They are both a little closer and
they both have East/West runways. Either that or you can continue to Vancouver.
We are going to Vancouver for Emirates 229. Thanks for the offer!
Okay Vancouver.
08R at Vancouver, is that correct? The right side?
That is correct Emirates 229
Okay, runway 08R.
Just advise if you need any other assistance.
Wilco, Emirates 229. Thank you!
Emirates 229, we're leaving 12000' now
Emirates 229, the wind at the field of Vancouver is 070
at 21 knots gusting to 27.
Roger.
Now I'm going to be a little bit nitpicky on this controller here.
And I think the controller's doing the best job that he can
to handle the situation and trying to give the pilot some alternatives
to one protect himself,
but also two, so the pilots know what all the options are,
but they could have done it in a different way.
And I think it would've got a much quicker result
because at this phase of everything that's going on
is a very high workload for the pilots.
We're in the middle of trying to get everything ready for landing.
We're doing all the different checklists.
We're verifying all the things that all the points are going to match
on the approach coming in.
So there's a lot of things that we're doing.
It's a high workload and the controller's saying like,
do you want to land immediately?
Obviously what he was getting to was there's some alternatives.
So when he says this.
And Emirates 229, are you in need of immediate landing?
He actually should have just led with this.
Emirates 229, I just want to be clear here.
I can offer you either Abbotsford airport and Victoria airport.
They are both a little closer.
In doing that initial questioning of do you need to land immediately?
The pilots are like, yeah, of course we need to do that.
How do you just led with,
Hey, I can give you some alternatives.
The pilots are typically going to just stick with what they have
because they've already loaded everything up, again, high workload.
We're verifying that we have all the right fixes and everything is set up
to then do that.
Get the weather and rework everything
when you're trying to get down quickly,
you've already verified you have the fuel,
you're already going to have support over there.
Your airline is going to be setting up things for the passengers,
setting up things for the crew, for fuel.
They're going to be organizing all that.
So unless there's a real reason not to go to that airport,
the 30 seconds to a minute sooner,
probably doesn't really help you to safely get on the ground.
Now, life or death situation.
Hey, you've lost both engines.
You're in a Sully situation.
Yeah. Okay. Whatever,
whatever the closest airport is. I don't care.
In this case, they're saying they have 30 minutes.
So they're going to be able to get there fine in just a couple minutes.
The difference of one or two minutes isn't going to make a big deal.
So they stick with what they were planning to go to which is Vancouver.
That's probably the decision I would've made as well.
So far, the pilots are doing everything right.
The controller is doing everything right.
It was just some unnecessary stuff to ask them
if they needed to land there a little bit early.
Watch what happens next.
Emirates 229, can I get when you get a minute please, your souls on board and fuel?
Stand by!
Okay! Emirates 229, just want to verify 367 souls on board and 1h30 fuel
It's 367 and fuel is half an hour... 30 minutes.
Okay, thank you sir! And you have any hazmat on board?
Negative
Roger
Emirates 229 contact Arrival frequency now 133.1
133.1, Emirates 229
Arrival, Emirates 229.
We are Mayday Emirates 229 heavy descending 5000' for Vancouver 08R
Emirates 229, Vancouver Arrival, I check the Mayday, sir. Descend and maintain 3000'
Descend and maintain 3000', Emirates 229
These pilots are doing everything right.
And Emirates is known for having a very rigid training program.
And it's showing right here because in the emergency situation,
this pilot is doing the right thing.
And what I'm referring to is that when he checks in with the controller,
he doesn't just check in as a normal Emirates.
He checks in with the Mayday.
And the reason you do that and of course this controller,
I would say 99.9% of the time is going to know
they have a Mayday aircraft coming in,
but you check in with that Mayday just on that 0.1% chance
that they didn't know that that was happening.
You want to check in.
So that way they know.
Because if they didn't know when they hear that Mayday call,
that is going to peak their attention and they're going to get very focused on
helping you get in.
Listen when the pilot checks in here.
Arrival, Emirates 229.
We are Mayday Emirates 229 heavy descending 5000' for Vancouver 08R
Sometimes people ask,
why do they ask about the souls on board?
And the reality is is that you could be transporting cadavers or dead bodies.
And so the firefighters that are on the ground in the event of evacuation or
that they need to go get people,
they need to know how many people it is that they're looking for.
So they verify the souls on board and then they verify the hazmat.
Hazmat is hazardous material.
Listen when they ask about that.
Okay, thank you sir! And you have any hazmat on board?
That information about the hazmat again is important to the firefighters because
now that you've declared an emergency, they're all coming out,
they're coming out to greet you.
There's going to be fire trucks everywhere.
So if you're as a passenger, looking out in your window,
seeing fire trucks everywhere,
there's a good chance there's a plane that declared an emergency.
Maybe not your plane,
but a plane nearby.
Anyway, those firefighters, they need to know that information
because if they were to have a chemical or
something on the plane,
they may need to use a special foam instead of water or whatever.
And they understand exactly what they can and can't do in the possible negative
repercussions of using the wrong thing.
If there is a certain chemical on board.
However, when you're flying on a passenger aircraft,
you're not going to have nearly the crazy wacky stuff that I may have
when I'm flying cargo.
Sometimes when I'm flying cargo,
I'll have things like this that are actually on the boxes,
which I put on my Instagram before,
which basically says that this cannot go on a passenger plane.
Oh, but sure. Let's put it on Kelsey's plane.
Let him go across the ocean. No big deal if we lose him.
An example of that is let's say you check a bag.
They ask you do you have any batteries?
And that's because if you have a lithium ion battery,
they don't want to catch fire, which I guess is very unlikely,
but it's happened. It could happen.
And they don't want to have that in the belly of the plane.
Now, if that were to happen and you're flying as a passenger,
there is a suppression system to put out the fire. So don't freak out.
It's not a big deal.
However, it could happen.
Now, in my case,
I've had it where I have an entire plane full of brand new cell phones.
When you get your new phones that come out,
who's bringing them across the ocean from wherever they're getting made?
I am.
And that plane will just be to the roof full of cell phones.
And that's something that we talk about.
When we get ready to take off
and we have all that hazardous material, all those lithium ion batteries,
all sitting there together.
We talk about that.
In the event that we take off, in these next couple minutes,
because there's going to be a lot of movement that's going to go on.
If something happens and we have a fire, this is our plan.
And we go over exactly what we're going to do
because you always want to prepare and plan for the worst case scenario.
That way you're not working it out while you're on fire
and there's a bunch of stuff melting through the floor of your plane.
That's not the time to be like:
What do you guys want to do now?
So watch what happens next.
Emirates 229, I'm going to set you up for about a 9 mile final.
Would you like something tighter than that sir or you okay?
9 miles is fine, Emirates 229
229, roger
heading 350, descend to 2000'
Right heading 350, descend altitude 2000 feet, Emirates 229
intercept, cleared ISL approach runway 08R
Fly heading 060 and cleared ILS approach runway 08R, Emirates 229
Emirates 22, due to fuel constraint,
in case of missed approach we require right downwind back to runway 08R
Emirates 229, roger so you can plan for that
Thank you!
We're established on the localizer for 08R
Emirates 229, roger. Joining about a 9.5 mile final.
Thank you! Current windcheck for us?
Surface wind at Vancouver 070 at 24 gusting 29
Okay
Remember what I talked about earlier about planning for worst case scenarios,
they're planning for this worst case scenario here.
If they come in and for whatever reason,
they can't put the plane down on the ground,
they need to do a go-around.
He's saying this is what I want.
He's telling the controller,
I want this thing.
Just let me turn around and come right back in just to make a right hand turn.
A right hand turn, come back in and land again.
He's telling him that because what's going to happen
in the event that they have to go-around
is that they're going to get up and they just want to keep it as tight
and as close to the airport as they can.
So they can come in and try again.
In some cases you might have at an airport,
a situation where in the event that you were to go missed,
meaning you try to land and it doesn't work out.
You go straight ahead for like 15 miles and then you hold over here.
They don't have time to waste.
So what he's telling the controller is
I want this and the controller's saying,
yeah, that's fine.
I can give you that. There's no problem with that.
The other thing and you know that I've talked about this before is,
you know that I'm often irritated when the people ask for wind checks.
Most of the time.
This is an exception though.
Here's why.
Listen when he asks the controller this.
Thank you! Current windcheck for us?
The wind check when the winds are really high like this is different.
And the reason is because different airlines will have different rules,
but it could be, as just an example, let's say the winds are 10 gusting 20.
Let me just make up a number here.
An airline could have something where they say,
we want you to have a wind additive of all the steady state and half the gust.
So all of the steady state, meaning the 10 knots and half the gust,
which would be another 10, so five.
So we want you to add 15 knots to the speed that you were normally
planning to land at.
The reason is is because if you come into land
and let's say that wind were to go away,
well then you could have a problem and your plane could drop out of the sky
and look something like this.
This is obviously not an ideal landing and not something you want to do
with a bunch of people on board.
So on a windy day like this,
the pilots will ask for a wind check for that reason.
So they know exactly how much speed to add
because if you don't add enough speed,
then you could have a problem.
That is different than when it's like five knots
or seven knots or a crosswind, or like, what is it like,
do whatever it takes to get your plane lined up with the runway
that doesn't matter.
And then a lot of small planes,
you're not going to have a huge wind additive
because if you take a small plane,
let's say a Cessna and you were to add 20 knots
to your plan speed to land at
you would never end up landing.
But on a big jet like this, it makes a big difference.
And as your plane gets bigger,
it makes a bigger impact.
Wings are longer, you got a lot more momentum.
So having something like a drop out of the sky like that 747 I just showed you
that's a big deal.
Next I want to talk about how the controller vectored these guys in
and put them exactly on a nine mile final right here.
Sometimes people get nervous in an emergency
and they want to get themselves in really tight to the runway.
The problem is that if you do that and you don't get everything situated in time
well, now you have to do a go-around and that makes things worse.
So the controller's putting them out there nine and a half miles out
as soon as that glide path starts down.
So that gives them time to get all situated and set up
and ready to go and make a nice, smooth landing
and not have any problems.
The only time you want to really jam yourself up really tight
is in the situation I talked about earlier,
where your plane's on fire.
Your plane's on fire. Okay,
well then it doesn't matter because seconds really make a difference.
But coming out here at nine and a half miles, that's like a beautiful vector.
He gave them a nice slice in there
so they could get set up and head downhill,
meaning descend towards the runway.
We call it going downhill and get ready to land.
You don't want to put people in too tight because they may not be able to get
everything situated in time.
So the controller is doing a fantastic job,
getting Emirates set up here
and you hear Emirates just following the lead of the controller.
And obviously they're paying attention to their fuel situation.
So far, they're doing a great job
and you can see how everybody's working together.
The controller knows it's important and he's not trying to put them too close.
And the pilots are taking the lead of the controller and verifying that
all those things are going to work out for their fuel situation.
So it's really pretty interesting to see.
Watch this final part here.
You have to exit at the end of the runway down at Delta-5.
Wilco, Emirates 229
Red 9 + 2, caution jet blast you can take from the triple 7
Two points here is something I don't think I've ever brought up before
is that you heard the pilot say Wilco.
That's basically a different version of saying roger,
and it means I will comply.
Listen what he says here.
Wilco, Emirates 229
The other thing I want to talk about is the firefighters are out there
and you heard them say red plus two.
I'm guessing.
I'm not a 100% sure.
That's probably one fire truck as a leader.
And you have two other fire trucks that are there
and they're calling them red.
So those guys are going to follow you all the way to the gate
and they're going to be all around your plane.
And it's going to freak everybody out on the plane,
but that's just what's going to happen.
They're going to be there.
Like I've always said,
it's better to have them and not need them
than need them and have them be all the way on the other side of the airport.
So anytime you declare an emergency,
just plan that those people are going to be there
and they're going to watch you get all the way parked up
and get your engine shut down.
They're going to be there for the entire process.
That's who he's referring to right here when he says red plus too.
Red 9 + 2, caution jet blast you can take from the triple 7
So if you ever see some fire trucks outside your plane,
there's nothing to worry about.
Everything's going to be okay.
If you enjoy this video,
check out these two over here.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Until then,
keep the blue side up.