C is number three on the list I was told always in an emergency
I guess it boils down to how people teach it? and how one treat these emergencies?
I was told by my instructor after that I was supposed to ask ATC for the descent before heading down, on the basis that there might well be conflicting traffic below.
I was without any exception taught to coordinate contingencies with ATC when the situation allows it, e.g. a slowly rising cabin altitude or an engine failure (requiring a lower cruise level, while still maintaining level as speed slowly runs back).
Versus,
For cabin altitude (a warning commonly triggered for a cabin too high) the first thing, without delay, is to don the oxygen mask. Once that’s done, initiate the descent with 45 up to 90 turn, mayday call, lights, belts, 7700. In descent, re-evaluate for MSA, further clearance with ATC.
I was under the impression that oxygen & pressurisation issues (small or big) are one of those “run for your life”, you can add cockpit smoke or cockpit fire to this category, there is no point talking on radio and losing your breath: you have to be in 8kft altitude (for cockpit oxygen) or near ground surface (for cockpit fire/smoke) in the next 3min
In most depressurisation & cockpit smoke, the pilots are dead after 10min and aircraft is on freefall anyway
The mention of “smoke” or “loss of pressurisation” on radio is automatically treated as MAYDAY by ATC irrespective if it’s declared by PIC or not
I think that the light experience of the pilot could have trigger a kind of ATc bias that could happen under stress when experience doesn’t show you the way to proceed. But Type rating is not for nothing… There are few memory items, there are usually easy but need to remain in memory…
Atc isn’t part of it. (it’s further low in emergency descent CL).
