Squawk 7700 today – live aircraft emergencies

What do the codes 7700, 7600 and 7500 mean?

A squawk is a four-digit code that the pilot sets in the aircraft's transponder. Day to day, air traffic control assigns the code, but three codes are reserved for exceptional situations and every radar can see them:

Code 7700 does not have to mean a catastrophe. Very often it is a passenger who needs a doctor, or a minor fault where the crew prefers to land early. Declaring an emergency gives the aircraft priority with controllers and at the airport.

An aircraft is circling over the city – what does it mean?

An aircraft that flies several circles is most often waiting in a holding area for clearance to land, because the airport is busy, the runway direction is changing or there is a thunderstorm over the airport. Sometimes an aircraft circles to burn off fuel before an emergency return to the airport – it then usually squawks 7700 and appears on this page. Training aircraft, police aircraft and rescue helicopters circle too.

How is this log created?

Every few dozen seconds our server scans all aircraft visible in the radar data and records those that are squawking an emergency code. For each event we store when the alert started and ended, where the aircraft was and at what altitude we last saw it. If the last position is low near an airport, it usually means the aircraft landed there.

Interesting flights over Poland

We record separately the rare aircraft that flew over Poland – for example the An-124 Ruslan, Boeing 747, Airbus A380, Beluga, C-17 Globemaster or AWACS early-warning aircraft – as well as state and military aircraft with their transponder switched on. Fighter jets on missions and some military flights do not broadcast a position, so you will not see them here.

Frequently asked questions