For an answer let's go back to 1923
When we hear the word Mayday, most of us picture a desperate cry for help—a pilot losing altitude, a ship taking on water, a voice crackling over a radio: “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!”
But where did this strange, almost cheerful-sounding word come from?
The answer is rooted in the early days of aviation—and in a bit of clever cross-linguistic thinking.
Back in 1923, at Croydon Airport in London, a senior radio officer named Frederick Stanley Mockford was tasked with creating a distress call that would be easily understood by both English and French pilots.
At the time, most air traffic crossed the English Channel, and communication needed to work across borders. Mockford proposed the word “Mayday”, a phonetic adaptation of the French phrase “m’aidez,” meaning help me.
The idea stuck.
Simple, clear, and unlikely to be confused with other words over crackling radio transmissions, Mayday was soon adopted internationally.
By 1927, it had become the official distress call for voice communication, replacing Morse code’s famed SOS—though SOS remained in use for telegraphic signaling.
To make it unmistakable, the call is always repeated three times: “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”
Despite sharing a name, the distress call has nothing to do with the old European May Day festivals or the labor movement’s International Workers' Day—it’s pure coincidence.
Instead, Mayday remains a quiet tribute to the practical minds who helped early aviators (and mariners) stay safe in the skies and at sea. So next time you hear it, remember: it’s not a celebration.
It’s a plea—and it just might save a life.
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