Maule Driver wrote:
I thought it was a very appropriate use of "pan" given the other
emergency activity and the nature of their own.

Three minutes before that, they were put on the localizer path and
turned over to the tower frequency. Apparently tower gave them back to
approach 90 seconds later because of the crash, and KLM was told to
circle. KLM then asked if Toronto was going to stay closed and ATC
answered yes and explained why. Fourty seconds later KLM came up with
the Pan Pan Pan. They were very calm about it, but also insistent on
Syracuse.

So yep, they very quickly decided where to divert and to declare the
emergency. [Side note: apparently they later landed in Montreal at
8:30pm. If only they'd had a little bit more fuel in the first
place...]

I've read somewhere that airlines were really cutting back on carrying
extra fuel the past few years. Sure, it's still up to the Captain, but
there's a lot of arm-twisting from the bean counters. This KLM came
trans-Atlantic and went missed with a little over one hour's total fuel
left... which sounds like a lot, unless the nearest airport was 45
minutes away and they had to go missed there as well.

Cheers, Kev