<pedantry> Unless you're French </pedantry>

You've got a good point though, really - the mayday call as a whole is quite formalised. "x souls on board" and so on.

Recall, though, the recent US air crash where the pilot ran out of fuel but didn't declare an emergency - in spite of the tower asking him if he wanted to! Having such a specific form of words acted in this case as a disincentive - he didn't want to be seen to be in serious trouble.

andy.

ObPerl: erm, print map {$_ x3} split //, ".-."