WE all know the word ‘Mayday’ spoken on a plane signals imminent disaster, but
any idea what ‘pan-pan’ means?
Turns out there’s a whole host of coded messages used by staff on planes,
trains and cruise ships to signal when there’s an emergency.
We reveal them for you here, so you know when to start running.
Airport emergencies
The signal for a general security alert at an airport is Code Bravo.
If you hear Code Adam, keep your eyes peeled – it means staff are being
alerted to the fact a child has gone missing.
Aircraft emergencies
While ‘Mayday’ is the most common shout when a plane or a ship is in trouble,
the word ‘pan-pan’ is often used when the threat of imminent danger is less
grave.
The term is taken from the French word ‘panne’, which means ‘breakdown’.
Numbers are also assigned as transponder codes to indicate certain problems.
Code ‘7500’ means an aircraft has been or is threatened with hijacking, while
‘7600’ signals a radio failure and ‘7700’ a more general emergency.
READ MORE:
Cruise ship codes
If you hear a Code Red, head back to your room and stay there.
The announcement means there’s been an outbreak of Norovirus or another
contagious illness and the ship requires a deep clean, with infected
passengers urged to stay in their cabins.
Code Green and Code Yellow are also used to indicate less severe cases.
Several codes, including ‘Mr Skylight’, ‘Code Blue’, ‘Alpha, Alpha, Alpha’ and
‘Star Code, Star Code, Star Code’, are used to signal a medical emergency,
while ‘Charlie, Charlie, Charlie’ announces a security threat.
‘Echo, Echo, Echo’ is used when there is the possibility of a collision with
another ship or high winds and ‘Sierra’ is code for ‘call a stretcher’.
‘Oscar, Oscar, Oscar’ or ‘Mr Mob’ will be announced when there is a man
overboard, while ‘Operation Rising Star’ signals a passenger has died.
If you hear ‘Red Parties’, ‘Alpha Team’ or ‘Bravo’ each spoken three times,
reach for the nearest fire extinguisher.
‘Delta’ signals there has been damage to the ship, ‘Papa’ indicates pollution
or an oil spill and ‘Priority 2’ means the boat has sprung a leak.
Tube Talk
If you travel on the London Underground, ‘Inspector Sands’ or ‘Mr Sands’ is
not a chap you’d like to hear about.
The phrase is commonly used both on the Tube and across the wider rail network
to indicate a potential emergency such as a fire or bomb scare. 
Other numbered codes are used to refer to certain cleaning jobs that need
carrying out.
Code 1 refers to blood, Code 2 is urine or faeces (gross), Code 3 is vomit
(usually after 11pm we’d guess), Code 4 is a general spillage, Code 5 is
broken glass, Code 6 is litter and Code 7 is anything else.
Cabin crew lingo
If you think you’ve overheard an air hostess spouting utter nonsense, it could
be they’re actually speaking in cabin crew ‘code’.
Charlotte Southcott, a flight attendant at Monarch Airlines, shared some of
the more bizarre jargon with Telegraph Travel.
Prior to departure, cabin crew will perform an ‘arm and crosscheck’, where the
plane doors are put into emergency mode.
Should the ‘armed’ door be opened mid-flight, the emergency slide will pop out
and inflate.
When the plane touches down, you’ll most likely hear ‘doors to manual’, which
is a signal to crew to turn off the armed setting.
Every member of cabin crew will carry a ‘plonkey kit’, a bag of essentials
which tends to include ice tongs, oven gloves, small slippers, a sewing kit
and a clothes brush.
The commencement of the in-flight service is known as ‘starburst’, while every
detail of the flight, including any disruptive passengers or a catering
issue, is recorded on the ‘debrief’.
Your tasty in-flight meal is known as the ‘hot bit’ and your unwanted waste
will be scooped up in the ‘gash bag’ – a military term referring to the gash
man in the navy who got lumbered with the rubbish jobs.
Prior to touching down air hostesses will apply their ‘landing lips’ – a slick
of lipstick so they look fresh on arrival.
If you hear the pilot announce there’s a ‘ground stop’, you could be in for a
wait.
This is when departures to one or more destination are curtailed by air
traffic control, often due to congestion or a backlog of aircrafts.