[old thread] Emergency. To declare or not to declare.

[pegase]

I don't know about the real life emmergency procedures but I guess that there are several levels.

Something like a broken window or fire is obvious to anyone in the plane and declaring the emmergency will at least show the passengers that the
pilots take the situation in account.

Something like flaps or gear deployments can be unnoticed by passengers for a while but before landing they must prepare for emmergency landing and
then the emmergency should be declared soon enough.

Failures like fuel leakcould remain hidden to the passengers but must be decleared to ground control.

Should not be possible to split emmergency declaration in 2 levels:

1) sqwawk to 7700 would declare emmergency situation to ground and crew but remains hidden to the passengers.
2) public emmergency annoucement when the passengers must get ready for "rock and roll"