Another emergency? AA107
 

It may be nothing too important but there's another airliner holding and using squawk 7766. This time AA107 on JFK to LHR which is currently holding off the Devon/Cornwall coast at FL200.

Quite a day for incidents.

It is quite a day.

Its currently skirting along the south coast at FL 200 heading east

Poss heading back to Heathrow now?

7766 is not an emergency squawk.

What code is7766

The one after 7765 :rolleyes:

Presumably the one ATC have requested be used.

7766 is not an emergency squawk.

I didn't know that but don't have inside info to refer to. It's obviously some sort of emergency to return to LHR though.

Appears to be on final for Heathrow.
Seems to have landed.

Arrivals board at JFK currently showing an arrival time of 23:00 EDT - 3 hours later than scheduled. Departure from LHR quoted at 17:08 BST with no mention of return to LHR.

You don't need inside info. You only need Wikipedia.

A friend is on the flight, apparently a "pressure" problem. I spoke to him when they were back at T3, about 50 minutes ago.

Yes, 7766 is just a regular squawk, used today by a couple of Stansted departures (RYR/EZY) and an inbound HEL-LHR (via Manston) BA flight, as well as by that AAL on departure from, and return to, LHR.

Though not at the same time, obviously. :O

Who would have guessed. :rolleyes: :*

Only partially true. There's no specific mention of 7766 and no clue as to what "ARTCC" refers to. I did look there and without further investigation it didn't really help me.

airsmiles, don't worry about not knowing things as this is supposed to be the forum where people can ask any question without fear of ridicule. Everyone has to start learning somewhere and you will find that most people who post here will be willing to help. Occasionally there will be a sarcastic reply (such as the one above my retort) but just ignore them. You will also be provided with duff information by those who think they know everything but those who do know what they are talking about will soon sort things for you. There are some great, really helpful, very knowledgeable spotters who post on here and are also at spotting sites around the country. You don't say where you are located but three good sites are Prestwick, Manchester and Yeadon (Leeds - Bradford). I'm sure there are others but those are the three of which I have some knowledge.

Just remember that there will be people with loved ones on board any particular flight and if/when they may read that some spotter has posted that their loved ones flight has an "emergency" when, it appears, it was merely a pressurisation problem, well that's when such posters become the "unwanted".

One might argue that a pressurisation problem or a particular transponder code designated an emergency but only to the naive and the spotters does it designate so.

The habit/addiction of monitoring these "spotter" websites for particular transponder codes and "let's hope it crashes so we'll really have something to post about" , well .....

Wikipedia is not always your friend. It is not the definitive source of these things and in the aviation world there are differences from Country to Country and somebody posting information applicable to the US may well be misleading you.

In the UK the list of codes can be found in the United Kingdom Air Pilot although even then you have to be careful because just after the list is another section which tells you that the UK doesn't actually use the ORCAM plan for allocating numbers shown in the list because it is a CCAMS state.

7766 is not a special use code and can be allocated to anybody on the whim of a computer near Brussels

airsmiles,

ARTCC is an acronym for Air Route Traffic Control Center (spelling of centre intentional because it's an FAA term).

As DaveReidUK pointed out, 7766 is a normal transponder code that is issued an has no relation to an emergency. Just because this specific flight may have had an issue is simply a coincidence. Had they declared an emergency then they would have swapped to one of the emergency codes.

As many of you will know, there are only the three emergency transponder codes (7500, 7600, 7700). There is no mixing of these codes to make a new code - you're either "squawking" one of these codes during an emergency, or you are squawking the code assigned to you by an ATC unit. ATC will not say "ok you're an emergency, here is a hybrid." (The caveat here is that ATC may assign you a new code once you've been identified as the emergency aircraft, as these three codes make A LOT of noise inside an ATC room, but it will not be a hybrid of the emergency codes plus something else).

Now, one does have to pay particular attention when using one of the 75xx, 76xx, or 77xx codes because of their proximity to the emergency codes. It is normal practice to either put the transponder in a standby mode when changing your transponder code (any code) to prevent unintentional selection through the emergency codes, or to change the last two digits first, then to change the first two digits for the same reason.

Hope this helps!

Very informative thanks.

I'm down on the Dorset/Hants coast and normally work on the defence side, so squawk codes aren't my best subject.