Cub Driver wrote:

Interesting that later he said "declaring an emergency."
....
And the pilot says "declaring Pan..." The whole object of the
emergency calls was to avoid having to use those extra words.

No. One half of the object was to get immediate attention. "Mayday" and
"pan pan" are wakeup calls for distracted radio operators. If a pilot
already has the ATS controller's attention, it has become common
practice to "declare an emergency" instead of using the term Mayday. Not
standard compliant, but accepted.

"Mayday" by contrast still serves a real purpose: it tells everyone
else on the freq to shut up.

As does pan pan (the other half of the object). Pan calls have priority
over all other traffic except distress calls.

Stefan