Pan-Pan vs Mayday: choosing urgency or distress

The distinction is the current threshold, not how the event started. Use Mayday when grave and imminent danger requires immediate assistance. Use PAN-PAN for serious concern needing urgent help or advice below that threshold. An urgency call should never prevent a later Mayday.

If a vessel transmitted an urgency message to more than one station and the action requested is no longer needed, ITU procedure requires a cancellation. It uses PAN-PAN three times, ALL STATIONS three times, THIS IS, the vessel name three times, call sign or other identification, MMSI if the initial announcement used DSC, and PLEASE CANCEL URGENCY MESSAGE OF followed by the UTC time.

Cancellation is not the same as simply going quiet. It tells every monitoring station which earlier message is closed. Continue any watch or follow-up directed by the coordinating authority and record the relevant time and outcome.