A military transporter plane sent out an emergency alert as it flew close to Bristol. The A400M issued an urgent "7700" to Air Traffic Control (ATC) as it flew over South Gloucestershire at midday yesterday (May 9) before making landing at an RAF airbase.
The emergency code is used to let people on the ground and other pilots know there is a serious issue on board and that the aircraft is in need of assistance, reports Gloucestershire Live. Flight Tracker shows the Airbus Atlas was in the air for around 40 minutes before its urgent landing at RAF Brize Norton.
The squawk, an aviation term for the codes used to communicate with ATCs, was immediately put out following a rapid drop in altitude. Flight trackers show the A400M dropping suddenly from around 2500ft to 1750ft in under a minute.
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The cause of the 7700 squawk and the rapid drop in altitude is unlikely to be released by the military.
The 45-metre-long military transporter, callsign COMET452, managed to land safely minutes after putting out the emergency code on its transponder. It had conducted an unknown sortie over Somerset before quickly returning to the Oxfordshire airbase.
The Atlas is the RAF's next generation of military transport aircraft, capable of taking off with 37-tonnes worth of troops, supplies and vehicles. The military is even able to fit a whole Chinook helicopter inside the vast plane, which has a 42-metre wingspan.
Aviation experts immediately noticed the aircraft in distress and posted on social media, as the plane was in the air: "Airbus A400M, ZM418, COMET452. Currently Squawking Emergency Squawk 7700 On The Approach To RAF Brize Norton."
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