Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

[Brock]

When 1920s pilots switched from Morse code to early voice radios, shouting "SOS" during a crash was practically useless. The soft letters simply vanished into the static.

Aviation needed a distinct voice distress word that couldn't be misunderstood. In 1923, the task of inventing this word fell to Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio officer at London’s Croydon Airport. He was asked to come up with a signal that would indicate an emergency and be universally understood by pilots and ground staff.

Mockford looked at the flight paths. At the time, the vast majority of Croydon’s air traffic was flying a single route: back and forth across the English Channel to Le Bourget Airport in Paris. This meant the new distress signal had to be instantly recognizable to both English-speaking and French-speaking operators.

Mockford proposed the word "Mayday." It was a phonetic, Anglicized spelling of the French phrase m'aidez or venez m'aider, which simply translates to "help me." The hard consonants and distinct vowel sounds of "Mayday" cut through radio interference far better than attempting to shout "SOS."

The idea caught on quickly. By 1927, the International Radiotelegraph Convention officially adopted "Mayday" as the standard voice distress signal, replacing the spoken "SOS" entirely.

Standard protocol dictates that the word must be spoken three times in succession: "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday." This rule serves two purposes. First, the repetition ensures the signal is heard even if the transmission drops out for a split second. Second, it distinguishes an actual emergency from a radio operator merely discussing a Mayday call that happened elsewhere.

[watab kid]

interesting , im familiar with both and am enlightened on the background of both , cool stuff to know 

[Trailrider #896]

"I was cruisin' down the Yalu, doing six-an-twenty-per,

   When a call comes from a major, 'Oh wont you save me, sir?

I got flack in both my wingtips, an' my tanks ain't got no gas!

    Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! I got six Migs on my @$$!'" - Oscar Brand