Originally Posted by
frozenboxhauler
"We "need" to declare an emergency" and "We "are" declaring and emergency" are two different things. Did the Captain declare and emergency? I really don't know. Don't get me wrong, ATC should have dropped everything, but the verbage was not strong enough. You're right, SikPilot, this should never happen again.
fbh
"We need to declare an emergency" sounds clear enough to me.
Controllers are SUPPOSED to be trained as to a pilot's natural reluctance to declare an emergency, and are supposed to err on the side of caution as to whether a situation is an emergency. SOCAL did this for me when I was PP w/ a wet instrument ticket and had a pitot/static malfunction in IMC over the mountains...I didn't declare an emergency, but the controller heard the tone of my voice when I explained my problem (unreliable altimeter) and she declared the emergency for me...