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Mayday
EntityQ283777· pop 42· linked from 289 articles

Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications.

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distress signal
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Mayday
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via Wikidata · CC0

~6 min read

Encyclopedic overview

9 sections
Contents
  • History
  • Mayday calls
  • Other urgent calls
  • Pan-pan
  • Declaring emergency
  • Silencing other communications traffic
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications.

It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organizations such as firefighters, police forces, and transportation organizations also use the term. Convention requires the word be repeated three times in a row during the initial emergency declaration ("Mayday, mayday, mayday").

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Mayday” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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