Compass today lost the cabin

[glasspilot]

Why won't pilots declare the emergency???

So I'm flying along today in NY airspace and compass comes on and says he's lost "cabin pressurisation". He seemed calm and not like he was wearing a mask so I figure he's okay and he means his cabin is starting to climb.

He asks for 10,000 but ATC can only give him 15k. A few minuets later compass comes back and says now he has a cabin pressure warning going off and would like 10,000. At this point ATC says, "compass, I'm declaring an emergency for you, turn right (some heading) and descend 10,000" and the discussion turns on where to divert.

My point of posting this is this:

Why are pilots so freaking hesitant to declare a freaking emergency?

Here is the criteria for those who may not know;

A. The safe outcome of the flight is at all uncertain, or

B. You need to excecute a maneuver right now without ATC clearance.

This one is clearly B. You lose or start to lose the cabin and can't get control then you need down...now. You are about to fly into magenta on your radar? You need a turn and if ATC says unable you say "I am declaring an emergency and turning to xxx heading"

There seems to be a common thought with many pilots that it's bad, or wrong, or weak, or who knows what to declare an emergency. And if ATC ever has to declare an emergency for you then odds are pretty strong that you're not doing your job of declaring yourself and you let the situation go way too far.

Remember "Flagship" and their little adventure from FL410? More guys refusing to just declare it and get the help they needed. And for no reason.

 

[BoilerUP]

Remember "Flagship" and their little adventure from FL410? More guys refusing to just declare it and get the help they needed. And for no reason.

Declaring an emergency after they had stalled the plane & core-locked their engines wouldn't have really changed the outcome much...

 

[ackattacker]

Declaring an emergency after they had stalled the plane & core-locked their engines wouldn't have really changed the outcome much...

I disagree. It might have gotten them vectors to an airport within gliding distance. That was a 20 minute emergency and it wasn't until the last few minutes that they even considered where they were going to put it down.

 

[BoilerUP]

...that's a good point I hadn't considered; they were just a couple miles short of Jeff City, right?

 

[ackattacker]

...that's a good point I hadn't considered; they were just a couple miles short of Jeff City, right?

Yes. But at the time of the stall incident, there were at least 6 suitable airports within gliding distance.

 

[Raoul Duke]

I think the Compass issue and the other are just too different to compare. Maybe the Compass pilot didn't think he needed to declare an emergency. He was there, why second guess his judgment? I certainly dont want to cry the sky is falling everytime something happens that is outside the norm.

 

[Draginass]

If you're losing cabin pressurization and are unable to fix it right away, that's an emergency. Declaring an emergency doesn't cost a dime and gets you rock-star status in the ATC system. If in doubt, declare.

 

[mesaba13]

I had this happen at 250 empty and did not declare an emergency. We descended to 10000 and the cabin never got higher than around 7000 feet. We don't even get a cabin warning until 8500 feet. Why declare in my case? Now if they wouldn't give us 10 right away then I would have declared.

 

[BOHICAgain]

So I'm flying along today in NY airspace and compass comes on and says he's lost "cabin pressurisation". He seemed calm and not like he was wearing a mask so I figure he's okay and he means his cabin is starting to climb.

He asks for 10,000 but ATC can only give him 15k. A few minuets later compass comes back and says now he has a cabin pressure warning going off and would like 10,000. At this point ATC says, "compass, I'm declaring an emergency for you, turn right (some heading) and descend 10,000" and the discussion turns on where to divert.

My point of posting this is this:

Why are pilots so freaking hesitant to declare a freaking emergency?

Here is the criteria for those who may not know;

A. The safe outcome of the flight is at all uncertain, or

B. You need to excecute a maneuver right now without ATC clearance.

This one is clearly B. You lose or start to lose the cabin and can't get control then you need down...now. You are about to fly into magenta on your radar? You need a turn and if ATC says unable you say "I am declaring an emergency and turning to xxx heading"

There seems to be a common thought with many pilots that it's bad, or wrong, or weak, or who knows what to declare an emergency. And if ATC ever has to declare an emergency for you then odds are pretty strong that you're not doing your job of declaring yourself and you let the situation go way too far.

Remember "Flagship" and their little adventure from FL410? More guys refusing to just declare it and get the help they needed. And for no reason.

They had a deferred bleed and the other one failed. I am sure they were trouble shooting the problem. No need to declare an emergency if you think you can fix the bleed by running the QRH. They diverted to DTW and they fixed the bleed and kept going.

I would not declare an emergency as soon as we have a failure I would try to trouble shoot the problem unless I was on fire or had an explosive decompression.

Im sure ATC could not give the cpz plane 10k without reason.

 

[ultrarunner]

I disagree. It might have gotten them vectors to an airport within gliding distance....

You think those two jokers deserved that?

They deserved what happened to them!