Distress, urgency and safety
Mayday: the distress call
Mayday is the spoken distress signal: a ship or person in grave and imminent danger, needing immediate assistance. It outranks every other transmission on the air.
Key facts
- The word comes from the French m’aidez ("help me") and was chosen for radiotelephony in the 1920s because it cuts through noise and accents.
- Mayday covers one situation only: grave and imminent danger to a ship or a person, requiring immediate assistance. Anything less urgent is Pan-Pan.
- Distress traffic has absolute priority. Every station that hears a Mayday stops transmitting, listens, and helps if it can.
- The distress call is MAYDAY spoken three times, THIS IS, and the ship’s name three times. The distress message that follows gives the identity once, the position, what is wrong, what help is needed, the number of persons on board and anything else that helps the rescuers.
- Give the position as latitude and longitude, or as a true bearing and distance from a charted point, with the numbers spoken digit by digit.
- Hearing a Mayday creates a duty. If a coast station or a better-placed ship does not answer, you acknowledge with RECEIVED MAYDAY and make sure the alert reaches someone who can act.
- The station controlling distress traffic can order radio silence with SEELONCE MAYDAY. The end of the distress is announced with SEELONCE FEENEE, and normal working resumes.
How to send a Mayday, step by step
- If the set has DSC, send the distress alert first: lift the red flap and press and hold the DISTRESS button until the radio confirms. The set then switches to Channel 16 by itself.
- Make sure you are on Channel 16 and on high power.
- Press the transmit button and speak slowly and clearly: MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. THIS IS, then the ship’s name three times, then the call sign and MMSI.
- Send the distress message: MAYDAY, the name and call sign once, the position, the nature of the distress, the assistance required, the number of persons on board and any other useful information. End with OVER.
- Release the button and listen. If nothing comes back, check the set and repeat the call.
A full distress call and message
A fictional ship. The order of the message: identity, position, the problem, the help needed, persons on board, anything else that helps.
NORDIC STAR: MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY.
THIS IS NORDIC STAR, NORDIC STAR, NORDIC STAR.
Call sign LIMA NOVEMBER QUEBEC ZULU, MMSI two-five-seven-one-two-three-zero-zero-zero.
MAYDAY. NORDIC STAR, LIMA NOVEMBER QUEBEC ZULU.
Position five-eight degrees one-four minutes north, zero-zero-five degrees zero-two minutes east.
Fire in the engine room. I require immediate assistance.
Eleven persons on board.
I am preparing to abandon ship.
OVER.
Hear it as it sounds on the radio (synthetic voice, fictional ship):
Synthetic voice; the ships, positions and people are fictional.
Acknowledging someone else’s Mayday
A coast station normally answers first. If you hear a Mayday and nobody acknowledges, you do.
BALTIC TRADER: MAYDAY. NORDIC STAR, NORDIC STAR, NORDIC STAR.
THIS IS BALTIC TRADER, BALTIC TRADER, BALTIC TRADER.
RECEIVED MAYDAY.
Hear it as it sounds on the radio (synthetic voice, fictional ship):
Synthetic voice; the ships, positions and people are fictional.
Mayday Relay: passing on a distress that is not yours
Used when you learn of a distress and the casualty cannot raise the alarm itself, or its call went unanswered.
BALTIC TRADER: MAYDAY RELAY, MAYDAY RELAY, MAYDAY RELAY.
THIS IS BALTIC TRADER, BALTIC TRADER, BALTIC TRADER.
MAYDAY. Sailing vessel MAYA capsized in position five-eight degrees one-zero minutes north, zero-zero-four degrees five-zero minutes east.
Two persons in the water. Immediate assistance required.
OVER.
Hear it as it sounds on the radio (synthetic voice, fictional ship):
Synthetic voice; the ships, positions and people are fictional.
Watch out
Mayday or Pan-Pan is a judgement about danger, not about style. Grave and imminent danger: Mayday. Serious but not life-threatening yet: Pan-Pan. Upgrading an urgency to a distress when the situation worsens is normal seamanship, not an admission of panic.
Listen: the standard phrases
Recordings from our SMCP trainer, in the accents you actually hear on the air.
Where this comes from
ITU Radio Regulations, Article 32 (distress communications); IMO SMCP (distress traffic); SOLAS Chapter IV (GMDSS).
This is not a legal text: when in doubt, the current wording of the Radio Regulations and the SMCP decides.
See also: Pan-Pan: the urgency call · DSC: the red button explained