Why Is 'Mayday' the International Distress Call?

Prior to flight becoming common, 'SOS' was the standard distress call. Learn how the code 'mayday' was invented in this episode of BrainStuff.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff. Lauren vogelbom here. May Day is an international
distress call used by airplane pilots, boat captains, and some
emergency response personnel. The U S. Coast Guard deals with
roughly twenty five thousand distress calls every year, some of
which involved the may Day code. The signal arose just

(00:24):
after World War One, as air traffic between Britain and
mainland Europe increased dramatically. All nearby nations needed an internationally
understood signal that would alert authorities to urgent aircraft problems.
So why not just use the standard s OS call
that navy captains used when they were in trouble. Well
Ships communicated through telegraph using Morse code, and this technology

(00:48):
made s O s of three dots, three dashes and
three dots unmistakable. By contrast, aircraft pilots used radio calls,
and s OS, owing to its consonants, could be misheard
as other letters like F one. Frederick Stanley Mockford, a
senior radio officer in London, was put in charge of
finding an appropriate code word. He reasoned that because so

(01:11):
much of the air traffic flew between Croydon, England and Paris, France,
it might make sense to use a derivative of a
French word. He came up with may Day, based on
the French pronunciation of maydie or help me, which itself
is a distilled version of la madie or come help me.
The US formally adopted may day as a distress signal

(01:32):
in due to radio interference and loud ambient noise. Pilots
are told to repeat the word three times when they
use the call. This repetition also serves to distinguish the
transmission from others that simply refer to the Mayday call,
although any situation in which it's being used is probably
a little panic filled. The Federal Aviation Administration encourages pilots

(01:55):
to offer specific information in a specific order so that
emergency responds knew exactly what they're dealing with. First, they're
told to repeat the word made a three times, then
the stage in address, the aircraft call sign and type,
the kind of emergency, the weather, the pilot's intentions, the
current position and heading, the altitude, the fuel remaining in minutes,

(02:16):
the number of people on board, and finally, any other
pertinent details given its importance. Most people respect the may
day's signal and use it only when absolutely necessary, but sadly,
the Coast Guard occasionally deals with hoax calls, owing in
large part due to the virtually untraceable VHF radio signals
it uses to receive distress signals. As a result, hundreds

(02:38):
of thousands of dollars and countless man hours may be
wasted trying to rescue people who were never in danger.
People who have used this system can be jailed for
up to ten years and find two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. But there are other distress calls that operators
can use when a situation isn't life threatening. The call
pan PAN means that you have an urgent situation that's

(02:58):
not immediately putting lives at risk of For instance, if
your boat ran out of fuel, then do you need assistance?
Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by
Tyler Klang. For more than this and lots of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production
of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

(03:19):
visit their heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,