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

[hamatebones]

The short version: yes, there is specific jargon, and it extends not only to emergencies but to ALL communication outside of the aircraft, plus a lot of communication within the aircraft. The jargon is somewhat country-specific and occasionally slangy, but the variations are small enough that most people don't have trouble with it.

Longer version: your player will say one set of things to their "copilot" and a different set of things if they're announcing things to Air Traffic Control. If their plane goes explodey at 30,000 feet in a clear blue sky (See: United 232, https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/reports/aar-90-06.pdf), then they have options and the conversation will be much lengthier. If they're in the middle of takeoff/landing and something goes wrong, the conversations will be much more short and abrupt (See: transcript of the Miracle on the Hudson https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1003.pdf , where the Captain gets down to single-word answers). In emergencies, you often have very minimal broadcasts, because unnecessary talk can be a real distraction to the pilots trying to fly the damn plane.

Pitch trim runaway on takeoff (VERY BAD)? The pilots might not say a fucking word to ATC, and ATC just watches the plane do frantic ascending circles till the pilots regain control. If the pilots say anything other than swearwords, it's "stall stall stall," to each other, until they've regained control. And only then do they call ATC, and ask to land ASAP ("Tower, this is Blorbo 123, mayday mayday mayday need immediate landing").

Engine failure at 30,000 feet? Well, that's an "emergency" (in Europe it's usually a pan-pan, that is, might eventually be mayday but not yet) but not actually likely to cause a crash; pilots would do an engine failure checklist, and might even call their company dispatcher before communicating to ATC that they're having difficulty. Even an uncontained engine failure that breaches the fuselage, like Southwest 1380 (https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1903.pdf), there's managing the immediate emergency -- pilots put on their air masks, start descending to 10,000 feet where the passengers can breathe, and only then do they reach out to ATC to make sure other airplanes get out of their way. ("Mayday mayday mayday, this is Blorbo 123, loss of pressurization, need immediate descent.") But once down to that safer altitude, the plane is still flying! Planes do fine on a single engine! Conversations with ATC can slow down! That plane will get to jump the queue and land immediately, but it'll land safely unless something else goes drastically wrong.

The fact is, when a plane crashes, there's often very minimal conversation to be recovered. Crashes usually happen from low altitude, so the time between "Yikes" and death is a few seconds, maybe. The pilots are concentrating on not crashing, so may not say a single word, or only a few "flaps! FLAPS!!" to each other, and nothing to ATC. Even when the emergency happens at high altitude, as with Egypt Air 804 (https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/masks-smoke-and-mirrors-the-untold-story-of-egyptair-flight-804-42c788fcac2d), that emergency may be an oxygen fire in the cockpit, in which case the pilots are way too busy fighting to breathe to say much at all.

[isabrella]

Ooh, that's all great info, thank you. I will have a read of the sources!