Distress, urgency and safety
Pan-Pan: the urgency call
Pan-Pan is the spoken urgency signal: a very urgent message about the safety of a ship or a person, when there is no grave and imminent danger yet.
Key facts
- Spoken PAHN-PAHN, from the French panne, a breakdown. The full signal is the word said three times.
- It means: I have a serious problem and I need help or attention, but nobody is in immediate danger of losing their life. That line between Pan-Pan and Mayday is the whole point of having two signals.
- Typical urgency traffic: main engine breakdown and drifting, a serious injury or illness on board, a person missing, a vessel overdue.
- The call is addressed to all stations, or to a particular coast station, on Channel 16: PAN PAN three times, ALL STATIONS three times, THIS IS, your name three times, then the message built like a distress message: position, the problem, the help needed.
- Urgency traffic has priority over everything except distress.
- For medical help, make the urgency call and state that you require medical assistance. You may still hear PAN PAN MEDICO: an older phrasing that some stations keep using.
- If the danger becomes grave and imminent, upgrade to Mayday. If the problem is solved, cancel the urgency with a message to all stations, so nobody keeps searching for you.
An urgency call: engines broken down
BALTIC TRADER: PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN.
ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS.
THIS IS BALTIC TRADER, BALTIC TRADER, BALTIC TRADER.
Call sign LIMA NOVEMBER ALFA BRAVO, MMSI two-five-seven-four-five-six-zero-zero-zero.
Position six-one degrees zero-three minutes north, zero-zero-four degrees four-five minutes east.
My engines are broken down. I am drifting south-east at two knots. I require a tug.
Eight persons on board.
OVER.
Hear it as it sounds on the radio (synthetic voice, fictional ship):
Synthetic voice; the ships, positions and people are fictional.
Watch out
A medical evacuation often starts as Pan-Pan and becomes Mayday when the patient’s condition turns life-threatening. The signal follows the danger, not the paperwork.
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 33 (urgency communications); IMO SMCP (urgency traffic).
This is not a legal text: when in doubt, the current wording of the Radio Regulations and the SMCP decides.
See also: Mayday: the distress call · Sécurité: the safety call