How to Declare an Emergency: Mayday vs Pan-Pan

If you need help, ask for it. Here is how — plainly, without hesitation, and in the right order. · 6 min read

Declaring an emergency is not an admission of failure and it is not something to be embarrassed about — it is the switch that unlocks priority handling and every resource ATC and the emergency services have. Too many pilots hesitate to declare because they are worried about paperwork or looking foolish, and that hesitation has cost lives. The reality is simpler and kinder than the fear: if you are in real trouble, you say so, ATC drops everything to help you, and the "paperwork" is almost always nothing more than a phone call afterward if they even ask. The words themselves are short. What matters is knowing them ahead of time so they come out calmly when your attention is mostly on flying.

Mayday vs Pan-Pan

There are two levels of urgency, and each has its own word, spoken three times so it cannot be missed or misheard:

MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY — a distress call: grave and imminent danger requiring immediate assistance. Engine failure, fire, loss of control, a structural problem. This is the top-priority call.
PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN — an urgency call: a serious situation that is not yet an immediate threat to life. A rough-running engine that is still making power, being lost and low on fuel, a sick passenger, a partial system failure. It tells ATC you need help soon, but you are not falling out of the sky this minute.

When in doubt, use Mayday. It is far better to declare a Mayday you did not strictly need than to under-call a situation that gets worse. You can always downgrade or cancel.

What to say

After the Mayday or Pan-Pan, give the controller a compact picture: who you are, what is wrong, where you are and at what altitude, how many people are aboard and your fuel, and what you want. You do not have to be perfect or say it all in one breath — but this is the information they need:

🎙 You say “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Norcal Approach, Skyhawk Five-Two-Kilo, engine failure, one-zero miles south of Livermore, three thousand, four souls on board, one hour fuel, requesting vectors to the nearest airport.”

Distress word ×3 · who you’re calling · callsign · the problem · position and altitude · souls and fuel · what you need.

"Souls on board" and fuel remaining matter because if you go down, they tell rescuers how many people to look for and how long you could have stayed airborne. Give your best estimate — nobody expects it to the gallon.

If you cannot reach anyone

If you are not already talking to a controller, 121.5 is the universal emergency frequency, monitored by ATC, airliners overhead, and Flight Service. Squawk 7700 on the transponder as well — it flags you to every radar facility in range even before you get a word out.

After the call

Fly the airplane first, always. Answer ATC when you can, but never let a radio call distract you from flying, picking a landing spot, and running your emergency checklist. Once you have declared, ATC will clear traffic out of your way, give you vectors, and roll equipment to meet you — your only job is to fly the airplane to a safe landing and let them handle everything else.

💡 Aviate, navigate, communicate — in that order, every time. The emergency call matters enormously, but a perfect radio call in a spin helps no one. Fly first; talk when you have a spare moment.

💡 The only way this becomes automatic is saying it out loud, dozens of times, before you key a live mic. That is exactly what ATCpal is for — rehearse a calm emergency declaration so the words are there if you ever need them. Practice it free at atcpal.app.

Phraseology sourced from the FAA Aeronautical Information Manual (Change 3, effective 9 July 2026) and the Pilot/Controller Glossary. Check the AIM · Last reviewed 13 August 2026.

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