Why are pilots so hesitant to declare an emergency?

[NoBShere]

I may have missed it and some have eluded to what i was thinking in regards to the comments about being task saturated. The aviate, navigate and communicate was taught to me in that order. It seems somewhat understandable (not saying correct) that if you are dealing with an in flight emergency, you may never get past step one, aviate, let alone get to step three. Is declaring an emergency communicating or aviating?

 

[Matthew Rogers]

I may have missed it and some have eluded to what i was thinking in regards to the comments about being task saturated. The aviate, navigate and communicate was taught to me in that order. It seems somewhat understandable (not saying correct) that if you are dealing with an in flight emergency, you may never get past step one, aviate, let alone get to step three. Is declaring an emergency communicating or aviating?

I would say it depends. Lower than 1000 feet in a critical phase of flight is different than 1000 feet or more in cruise flight. I was more than happy to talk to ATC and know that at least someone was thinking I had a chance of crashing. Better than landing in trees and hoping someone would see or wander by.

 

[MauleSkinner]

I may have missed it and some have eluded to what i was thinking in regards to the comments about being task saturated. The aviate, navigate and communicate was taught to me in that order. It seems somewhat understandable (not saying correct) that if you are dealing with an in flight emergency, you may never get past step one, aviate, let alone get to step three. Is declaring an emergency communicating or aviating?

Declaring is communicating.

keep/get the blue side up (aviate) and point the airplane in a safe direction (navigate), then communicate your needs/desires, to include emergency declaration if applicable.

if you can’t aviate or navigate, feel free to communicate your imminent demise.

 

[tawood]

It’s always been interesting to me that with one exception, my engine failures have resulted in less stress than my missed approaches (7 each in real life). I guess over the years engine failures have gotten way more emphasis in training.

Funny you mention that. I've had two incidents flying that I would consider emergencies, and I've had two times IFR that required missed approaches, and the missed approaches were way more stressful for me also. One scared the bejesus out of me because the AWOS was reporting conditions that shouldn't have required a missed, so I was completely caught off guard. After landing, I thought about trying to get the ATC recordings of that one when I called back to approach, only because of the way they responded, I knew I must have sounded scared...they literally gave me priority handling to get me to a better airport when I called them and said I was going missed.