Overview

This section is for trainers and examiners. It says what a simulated aircraft does once a trainer has started an emergency, in what order, and on what basis. Each behaviour is either a rule from a published source or a decision made for this server. The page for each kind marks which is which, and says what is not simulated yet, so you can tell a trainee's mistake from a limit of the simulation.

This page covers what every emergency has in common. What each kind does is on its own page.

How an emergency runs

A trainer starts an emergency in the aircraft's private window (Trainer). From then on it runs by itself on simulated time, so a paused simulation pauses it too. Each aircraft can have one emergency at a time.

Every emergency command typed on the frequency is refused privately, so the trainee never sees one.

When it starts

An emergency starts at once, after a number of simulated minutes, or when the aircraft passes a fix.

The timing always comes last, for example emergency comms transmitter at ROKIL.

Starting at a fix

With at <FIX> the emergency starts when the aircraft passes that fix. A fix counts as passed once it is abeam or behind the aircraft and less than 5 NM away. That is the same rule the server uses to move an aircraft on to the next point of its route.

• A fix on the aircraft's route starts the emergency when the aircraft moves on to the next point. Aircraft turn inside a fly-by point instead of flying over it, which is why the rule allows some distance.
• A fix off the route starts it when the aircraft passes it abeam within 5 NM.
• If the aircraft moves away from the fix without coming within 5 NM, for example because it was vectored, nothing starts. The trainer is told once, with the distance. The emergency keeps waiting, and emergency now starts it.
• A fix already behind the aircraft, or one that does not exist, is refused at once. If the fix is not on the aircraft's route, the answer to your command says so.

The 5 NM is a decision made for this server. No source gives a distance for passing a fix.

Steering it

While it runs, any trainer can steer it from the aircraft's private window:

• emergency now makes the next step happen at once.
• emergency pause stops the emergency's clock, and emergency resume runs it again. The aircraft keeps flying in between. This is not the server's pause, which stops the whole simulation.
• emergency status says what is running, for how long, and what comes next.
• emergency cancel ends it.

emergency list in a private chat with SERVER shows every running emergency on the server. The full syntax is on Trainer.

What you are told

The aircraft reports privately, in its own window, to the trainer who last typed an emergency command for it, emergency status included. Another trainer takes the reports over by typing one. If the trainer they go to is no longer on the server as a trainer, nobody is told.

Before each step the trainee can see, the aircraft says what comes next and when. Each event is one message, and a variant is always called by the same name. The page for each kind shows the main messages.

emergency now usually gives no answer of its own. The next step happens at once, and its message is the answer. If the emergency is on hold or has no steps left, or if the simulation is paused, the aircraft says so instead. emergency pause also says so when nothing is left to hold.

How it ends

emergency cancel ends it. It also ends when the aircraft is removed at the runway after an approach clearance, or is deleted. What the aircraft says on the frequency afterwards depends on the kind.

The server's log records every emergency command typed in an aircraft's window, a refused one included, with the position that typed it. It also records every step the emergency takes by itself. The operator can review a session from it afterwards.