[danielschonfeld]

American Airlines (at JFK) proved you can call emergency just because you feel like it with no repercussion.

And really the pilot in command is the one in control. For the attitude that controller had he should have declared an emergency and told him what he was going to do and have him clear all airplanes around them.

Bullying attitude don’t belong in a game with 500mph (~300mph in this case) objects. If you’re going to be a bully expect others to play the game in the same manner.

[pdonis]

> American Airlines (at JFK) proved you can call emergency just because you feel like it with no repercussion.

I don't think it's that simple. In the AA case you refer to, the pilot was concerned about the high crosswind on the runway ATC wanted him to land on, so he declared an emergency so he could land on a safer runway. Crosswind landings are dicey at the best of times, and I suspect that if the AA pilot didn't get any repercussions it was because in that situation his action was considered a reasonable judgment call. Yes, technically it wasn't an "emergency" since nothing was wrong with the plane, but it was in the sense that the pilot did not think he could safely land on the runway ATC wanted him to land on, so it was a safety issue.

[danielschonfeld]

Following along that logic. Nobody would fault the LH pilot for a similar judgement call requiring an immediate landing at the closest suitable airport, namely SFO.

ATC was in the wrong here and the attitude displayed was neither called for nor professional.

[pdonis]

> Nobody would fault the LH pilot for a similar judgement call

Bad analogy. The LH pilot's reason for asking for an ILS approach was company policy; he made no claim that he was unable to make a visual landing safely because of actual conditions, only that his company wouldn't allow him to make a visual landing as a matter of policy.

> ATC was in the wrong here and the attitude displayed was neither called for nor professional.

Many other posters in this discussion have pointed out aspects of the situation that make it clear that it wasn't that simple.

[kqr]

And this is (should be, at least) good practise. When there's an emergency, you don't want pilots second-guessing that radio call because they are worried about repercussions if they understood the situation wrong.

[throwaway2037]

You wrote: <<American Airlines (at JFK) proved you can call emergency just because you feel like it with no repercussion.>>

Can you provide a flight number and date? I would like to learn more.

[dilyevsky]

AA2 on May 5, 2010

[jquery]

An aggressive pilot that declares an emergency simply to avoid diverting won't be a pilot for long. The ATC did nothing wrong.

[danielschonfeld]

I beg to differ. He didn’t divert, a diversion was pushed down his throat.

It’s also arguable that the diversion was the lesser safe course of action given his location.

[jquery]

"if we are not set up for base soon, we will have to declare fuel emergency and that would really ** up your sequence"

At that point ATC offered vectors to the alternate. A diversion was never pushed down his throat.