When does an declared emergency end?

C

Clip4

Final Approach
Joined
Jun 27, 2013
Messages
9,465
Location
A Rubber Room
Display Name
Display name:
Cli4ord
If a pilot advises ATC he has an emergency, does the emergency continue until the aircraft has landed or can the pilot advise ATC that an emergency situation no longer exists and assistance is no longer required?


Ie: VFR into Imc, inflight icing, rough engine-suspected carb ice,
 
Usually once the emergency aircraft lands, the crash crews control the airfield at that point, and it's not until the emergency crews close the case (whatever it may be) that the emergency is considered over. Once you declare an emergency it's an emergency until there is a conclusion (at least my understanding!)
 
If you declare an emergency, then get things resolved, you can definitely advise ATC and continue on your way. Depending on the circumstances, there might be an attempt to gain more information for the ATC facility's daily log. If it's suspicious-sounding enough, it may be reported to the Domestic Events Network and investigated from there. If you think you have carb ice, and then clear it up, I wouldn't be concerned. If something breaks and you think you can cancel the emergency and ferry the airplane past a bunch of suitable airports, maybe it won't be looked upon very nicely.
 
DavidWhite said:
You can cancel an emergency, but generally in the airplanes we fly you won't have a reason to.
Click to expand...

Huh?

An emergency descent through a cloud layer would be over once you're through the cloud layer, for instance. If you still have control of the aircraft, you can approach and land normally, possibly over large distances.

Switching tanks to an empty tank at altitude could also result in a rather short emergency declaration as the pilot works through the emergency checklist and the engine comes back to life.

I witnessed a gear fault on a Lake (from the ground) that obviously had a declared emergency, due to all the fire trucks blasting around the airport. Once the pilot pulled his head out of his butt, he landed normally in the Bay. I don't know if he canceled the emergency, but it clearly wasn't necessary.
 
About 12 years ago I was IFR at night on top of a stratus layer, the bottoms of which were about 1000 - 1500 agl. It was a beautiful night, one of the comets was visible.

I was flying from San Antonio to Georgetown Texas in an Archer/A, when the alternator drive belt parted about 40 miles south of Austin.

I declared an emergency and told ATC I would be NORDO for about ten minutes while I DR'd toward the Austin ILS. I shut down all the lights and avionics and motored towards the glow of Austin.

When I came back on the air I got a vector to the ILS and came out of IMC at about 1300' agl.

At that point I told ATC to cancel the emergency and that I could proceed to Georgetown VFR, which I had in sight (it was clear as bell under the clouds).

They gave me a phone number to call when I got down.

I called them after an uneventful landing, they just wanted to be sure I made it OK. I never heard another word from the FAA about it.

The next day I ordered a handheld GPS from Garmin.
 
JimNtexas said:
At that point I told ATC to cancel the emergency and that I could proceed to Georgetown VFR, which I had in sight (it was clear as bell under the clouds).

They gave me a phone number to call when I got down.

I called them after an uneventful landing, they just wanted to be sure I made it OK. I never heard another word from the FAA about it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but that was 12 years ago. When I had a fuel gauge glitch over western NY a couple of years ago, I didn't even declare, just told ATC I wanted to make a precautionary landing because one of my gauges was reading zero. They rolled the fire trucks and gave me a number to call. On the ground the fuel gauge came alive again and I could not reproduce the problem. When I called the number they assured me that they just wanted to make sure I made it down safely, just as in your case. After a thorough preflight I continued to my destination and thought nothing more of it. But a few days later I got a call from the Rochester FSDO. After talking to a few local aviation lawyers I returned the call and was told by the FSDO guy that ATC is now required to submit paperwork and the FSDO is required to investigate it any time a flight in the system terminates abnormally (my paraphrase, not his exact words).

In my case, they were investigating whether I had taken off in an unairworthy aircraft. I described everything I had done to ensure that it was airworthy, and never heard anything more about it... but YMMV. The FAA can and sometimes does make a federal case (no pun intended) over apparent non-events.
 
the FSDO is required to investigate it any time a flight in the system terminates abnormally
Click to expand...

You may be correct. One of our club members told Austin Approach that he suspected he might have a flat struct on our Archer and so he wanted the long runway.

They rolled the trucks even though he had not said the 'E' word, and in fact the FSDO did call him a few days latter. AFAIK he told his story and that was the end of it.

I think it's better to use the 'E' word early and often, and deal with the phone latter. That's another thread, YMMV.
 
Knock on wood... But in 33 years of flying and 10 years developing my experimental powerplant I have NEVER used the "E" word.... But I admit.. I thought about it a few times...:eek:
 
It possible that you could cancel an emergency: a weather situation that you fly out of, or an alarm or indication that you later determine to be an indicator failure rather than a system failure. More than likely they will pass on a number for you to call when you get back on the ground so they can mark the situation as resolved. Not all emergencies get sent over to the FSDO; particularly if it was a precautionary emergency and no deviations or violations were made as a result.
 
JimNtexas said:
You may be correct. One of our club members told Austin Approach that he suspected he might have a flat struct on our Archer and so he wanted the long runway.

They rolled the trucks even though he had not said the 'E' word, and in fact the FSDO did call him a few days latter. AFAIK he told his story and that was the end of it.

I think it's better to use the 'E' word early and often, and deal with the phone latter. That's another thread, YMMV.
Click to expand...

How would he know he had a flat strut, unless he took off with a flat strut? That might be why the FSDO called.
 
Brad Z said:
Not all emergencies get sent over to the FSDO; particularly if it was a precautionary emergency and no deviations or violations were made as a result.
Click to expand...
See post #7. I believe that used to be true, but at least in some districts (not sure about all), it no longer is.
 
After a wee-small-hours takeoff from Oakland in a P-Navajo, the left engine began acting up. I told the tower that I had an engine failure and he cleared me to land on any runway. As I went through the shutdown procedure the left engine roared back to life as I was pulling the mix to idle-cutoff. I told the tower that everything was under control and I was continuing to Seattle. No repercussions or phone calls. It was a fuel controller problem that was force-feeding fuel to the engine, and as soon as the mix became 15-1 it returned to normalcy. Last time I saw the plane it was parked with the left engine gone.

Bob Gardner
 
azure said:
See post #7. I believe that used to be true, but at least in some districts (not sure about all), it no longer is.
Click to expand...

I declared an emergency last November (due to a failed alternator in IMC) and was asked to call from the ground. The ATC supe just wanted to make sure I got on the ground safely and I never got a call from the FSDO. I asked for priority handling (and kicked my buddy who was ahead of me off the approach he had already initiated so I could be #1) but no regulations were violated.
 
Brad Z said:
I declared an emergency last November (due to a failed alternator in IMC) and was asked to call from the ground. The ATC supe just wanted to make sure I got on the ground safely and I never got a call from the FSDO. I asked for priority handling (and kicked my buddy who was ahead of me off the approach he had already initiated so I could be #1) but no regulations were violated.
Click to expand...
It may vary depending on the FSDO. In my case there was no violation, but they were required to report anyway, and the FSDO thought they might be able to pin a violation on me, so they started nosing around.

YMMV as always. But don't assume that because there was no PD or violation that no paperwork will be filed. Since that event, I lean toward giving ATC only the information they need to know, much less declaring an E when there may not be one.
 
azure said:
It may vary depending on the FSDO. In my case there was no violation, but they were required to report anyway, and the FSDO thought they might be able to pin a violation on me, so they started nosing around.

YMMV as always. But don't assume that because there was no PD or violation that no paperwork will be filed. Since that event, I lean toward giving ATC only the information they need to know, much less declaring an E when there may not be one.
Click to expand...

Sad it worked out that way.. The whole idea is to learn... not set out on a witch hunt to justify some guvmint workers job.....
 
azure said:
After talking to a few local aviation lawyers I returned the call and was told by the FSDO guy that ATC is now required to submit paperwork and the FSDO is required to investigate it any time a flight in the system terminates abnormally (my paraphrase, not his exact words).

In my case, they were investigating whether I had taken off in an unairworthy aircraft. I described everything I had done to ensure that it was airworthy, and never heard anything more about it... but YMMV. The FAA can and sometimes does make a federal case (no pun intended) over apparent non-events.
Click to expand...

The event gets processed through ATQA (Air Traffic Quality Assurance) and is assigned to the local FSDO. The Inspector follows up with information obtained from the pilot. The majority of the time it's a simple phone call to fill in the blanks and it's over.


azure said:
It may vary depending on the FSDO. In my case there was no violation, but they were required to report anyway, and the FSDO thought they might be able to pin a violation on me, so they started nosing around.
Click to expand...


I've done my share of these reports. It's not a matter of "nosing around to pin a violation" on anyone. The report has several pages of information the Inspector is required to fill out (pilot information, aircraft information, etc) that goes into the ATQA database.

This is not something an Inspector arriving at the office looks forward to doing, it's required for him to close out the record.


azure said:
YMMV as always. But don't assume that because there was no PD or violation that no paperwork will be filed. Since that event, I lean toward giving ATC only the information they need to know, much less declaring an E when there may not be one.
Click to expand...

Declare an emergency if you fill you need to. I would rather process the paperwork afterwards on the ground than be pulled out of a wreck because I was afraid to answer a few questions.
 
Last edited:
N801BH said:
Sad it worked out that way.. The whole idea is to learn... not set out on a witch hunt to justify some guvmint workers job.....
Click to expand...

It's not a "witch hunt". These databases serve a purpose to insure ATC's integrity and to help discover problems in the system and improve it.
 
RotorAndWing said:
I've done my share of these reports. It's not a matter of "nosing around to pin a violation" on anyone. The report has several pages of information the Inspector is required to fill out (pilot information, aircraft information, etc) that goes into the ATQA database.

This is not something an Inspector arriving at the office looks forward to doing, it's required for him to close out the record.
Click to expand...
I'll buy that, if the information he's required to fill out includes not only checking a box that says "no FAR violation occurred" but also justifying that answer.
Declare an emergency if you fill you need to. I would rather process the paperwork afterwards on the ground than be pulled out of a wreck because I was afraid to answer a few questions.
Click to expand...
Sure, if I felt the need to declare, I would. If I had any serious doubt that I'd be able to make it safely back onto the ground, no question that would be an emergency and worth declaring one. But here there was no question and I did not declare an emergency. I simply wanted to get on the ground to be sure that I was dealing with a gauge issue and not a tank that had fed or leaked dry. I had plenty of fuel in the other tank to make the nearby field. So I told ATC that I was diverting and explained why. The price was having to go through a pretty stressful phone conversation that zeroed in on my decision to take off again.

No thanks. If I had it to do over again, I would have just said that I needed a pit stop, request a frequency change.
 
azure said:
I'll buy that, if the information he's required to fill out includes not only checking a box that says "no FAR violation occurred" but also justifying that answer.
Click to expand...

No such box exist.

I've elaborated on this several times here, but our "mavens" of the internet keep trying to keep up the myth that Inspectors just love looking for violations and will jump at the chance to write one.

Doing an enforcement within the FAA is a huge pain in the ass and it's not a simple process. One the genie is out of the bottle you simply can't put him back in. Also, you have to convince your manager this is worth pursuing, and he has to convince regional counsel of the same thing. They do not like pursuing weak or non existent cases, period. For the Inspector alone he is looking at countless hours of paperwork just to get the ball rolling. Trying to prove, in a case such as yours a violation exist is very weak.


azure said:
Sure, if I felt the need to declare, I would. If I had any serious doubt that I'd be able to make it safely back onto the ground, no question that would be an emergency and worth declaring one. But here there was no question and I did not declare an emergency. I simply wanted to get on the ground to be sure that I was dealing with a gauge issue and not a tank that had fed or leaked dry. I had plenty of fuel in the other tank to make the nearby field. So I told ATC that I was diverting and explained why. The price was having to go through a pretty stressful phone conversation that zeroed in on my decision to take off again.
Click to expand...

Again, the Inspector needs to fill out the report clear and concise. If he doesn't it gets caught and goes back to him for more investigation, something he doesn't really want to deal with. More than likely he wanted to make sure the report wouldn't be questioned by the reviewer up stream.

Measure twice, cut once.


azure said:
No thanks. If I had it to do over again, I would have just said that I needed a pit stop, request a frequency change.
Click to expand...

You are PIC, do what you feel you need to do.
 
Last edited:
N801BH said:
Sad it worked out that way.. The whole idea is to learn... not set out on a witch hunt to justify some guvmint workers job.....
Click to expand...
You can't assume one cowboy at a FSDO is the system any more than one bad police officer.

I've had an IMC emergency, declared the emergency,was assisted by ATC, was given a number to call, called it, received a follow-up call from the FSDO, spoke with the inspector, was completely honest (including my own failure), and that was the end of it.

And there are situations in which declaring an emergency results in avoiding a violation.

Problem is that it's hard to tell which situation you are in. That's why the generic advice about not talking to inspectors.

But that's on the ground. I wouldn't hesitate declaring an emergency if I needed assistance. Not for a second.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Problem is that it's hard to tell which situation you are in. That's why the generic advice about not talking to inspectors.
Click to expand...

In my experience working on the other side of the fence I've seen people who use the "never talk with an Inspector" attitude escalate a small situation which could be resolved with a phone call into something much bigger.
 
If you declare an emergency, and ATC helps you, it's a nice idea to write them a thank you letter. Anyway, that's what I did.
'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top