Plane crash actions/speech

[isabrella]

Hi all!

I'm writing a piece about a precocious young teen who is playing a game about a plane crashing with her friends. It takes place in our world, in the 2010s. In the game, her friend pretends to be the pilot but the MC is going to correct her language from generic kid speech ("code red, we're going down!" etc.) to very specific pilot jargon because she knows all about plane crashed. I'm wondering if anyone could share what kind of jargon pilots might use during a plane crash? Any kind of crash is fine, but it would be good to know if the jargon was specific to e.g., engine failure.

Thank you!

Comments

[packbat]

It's not an immediate answer, but the YouTube channel Mentour Pilot does very good documentaries about air incidents and accidents that might help you get some context for the kind of thing. You could also look up recordings of ATC audio - in the Miracle on the Hudson, the plane was in an emergency and going down, like your hypothetical kid speech example.

Actually, I just found a text version of the transcript - a couple lines from that:

Sullenberger (15:27:32.9): Mayday mayday mayday. Uh this is uh Cactus fifteen thirty nine hit birds, we've lost thrust (in/on) both engines we're turning back towards LaGuardia.

LaGuardia departure control (15:27:42): Ok uh, you need to return to LaGuardia? Turn left heading of uh two two zero.

Departure control (15:28:05): Cactus fifteen twenty nine, if we can get it for you do you want to try to land runway one three?

Sullenberger (15:28:10.6): We're unable. We may end up in the Hudson.

So, things I'm seeing: "code red" should be "Mayday, mayday, mayday", the kid should identify the plane, the kid should state what went wrong with the plane … I'm not an expert at all but those are a few obvious things I picked up on.

[isabrella]

Brilliant, thanks so much! That's been super helpful.