So, I was flying a medevac last night in the Cessna 208B and everything was going fine. I think I was about 40min into the flight. Suddenly, the doc asks the nurse for a vitals check then says something to me like “It’s nothing you did, but we need to get this patient to the nearest hospital.”
Next thing I know, my mission objective in the little window disappears and the only option left in it is “Hold ALT + N to skip to descent.”
What was I supposed to do there?
There isn’t an option in the ATC window to declare an emergency and ask ATC for routing to the nearest airport that’s close to a hospital, which is what I think would happen in real life.
Last night, I went with “skip to descent” and that messed up the mission because during the descent I kept getting instructions from ATC to climb and maintain FL220 and when I used the ATC window to try to request a different approach (in hopes it would override the odd instructions), I got a crash-to-desktop.
No clue how I was supposed to handle the doctor’s instructions, and I can’t find info online about it.
I had the same mission at one point and ended up aborting it, however, I think you need to open the communications window, cancel ifr, and select a new airport (look at the tablet to find a near airport that would accommodate landing) and set the radio to the ATC on that airport. I am going to look for that same mission tomorrow to see if that works.
They tell you the airport on the comms.
Just happened to me. I pressed enter when prompted, and I issued a “pan pan pan” but then ATC ignored me completely. I pressed ALT + N to skip to decent, and it failed my mission. It’s still way too buggy for diversions like this.
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I wasn’t told anything over comms, unfortunately. As I said, the doc told me “we need to divert to the nearest hospital” and that was it.
I asked this question on the MSFS Discord server and I was told I should play those missions with the augmented reality “floating blue brackets” on because what likely happened was those brackets changed on their own and I missed it because I usually play with them off. Frustrating.
When I got it, I had the blue brackets on, they did not change.
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Oh, interesting. Good insight. So this issue isn’t just about the brackets being on or off.
I can confirm the same issue. I did have the medevac mission once before work as expected with a ‘return to the departure airport’ due to a life threatening complication on the patient (besides being sent to an airport with 24 knots crosswind) and there the mission steps as well as the ATC communication all showed precisely what I was expected to do.
Today, I had the issue same as the OP described, the doc and nurse text lines state the issue and ask me to return to the departure airport immediately.
However, ATC does not tell anything and there are no options to declare the pan pan. Being confused, I switched on the blue rectangles and they keep showing the original planned route, too.
EDIT / ADDITION: On another occasion with the same issue, I resorted to flying the originally planned route and could succesfully finish the mission by sticking to the original flight plan. The patient made it through (mission rating patient condition at 100%).
I did not use the ‘skip to’ function, but I did use the Increase Sim Speed function.
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I had this happen to me today and tried precisely that. Everything worked, managed to contact ATC and request landing. Everything done, plane stops, boom mission failed, landed at wrong place.