Sécurité (pronounced “securitay,” said three times: “Sécurité, Sécurité, Sécurité”) is the internationally recognized prefix for a safety message — importantly, not a distress or urgency call, but a way of flagging that important safety information follows.
Where Sécurité Sits in the Hierarchy
- Mayday — grave and imminent danger
- Pan-Pan — urgent, requires assistance, not immediately life-threatening
- Sécurité — a safety information broadcast, no emergency at all
What Sécurité Is Used For
- Navigational warnings — a hazard to navigation (drifting object, uncharted obstruction, malfunctioning navigational aid)
- Meteorological warnings — severe weather information relevant to vessels in the area
- Other important safety information a vessel wants to broadcast to anyone nearby
Why This Isn’t an Emergency Call
Sécurité exists specifically because not all important radio traffic is an emergency — a vessel that’s sighted a drifting shipping container that could damage another vessel’s hull has genuinely useful safety information to share, without any actual emergency occurring. The Sécurité prefix flags “listen, this matters for your safety” without triggering the emergency response that Mayday or Pan-Pan would.
Correct Use Matters
Just as with Mayday and Pan-Pan, using the wrong tier — treating a genuine emergency as a mere Sécurité message, or flooding the safety channel with Sécurité calls for trivial information — undermines the whole point of having a graduated system that lets anyone monitoring the radio immediately judge how seriously to treat an incoming message.
Exam Relevance
Sécurité’s position in the distress/safety signal hierarchy, and appropriate use for navigational and meteorological warnings, are core GMDSS and Communication topics in deck officer competency exams.