Passengers were heading from Amsterdam to Manchester Airport when flight crew aboard the easyJet plane sent out a mid-air emergency alert to air traffic control
An easyJet flight declared an emergency as it approached Manchester Airport.
Passengers were making the short trip from Amsterdam yesterday when flight crew aboard the Airbus A320-200 sent out a mid-air alert and the plane began circling in a holding pattern.
The pilot of easyJet flight U22164 from Schiphol Airport deviated from a normal trajectory into Manchester Airport and circled to the north of the city, according to flight trackers.
It was around one hour after the plane had taken off that flight crew declared the emergency as it was preparing to make the descent into Manchester, Air Live reports.
Normally a squawk code of 7700 is issued to warn air traffic control of an emergency on board. This gives priority to the aircraft to come into land and emergency services would be waiting for it on the ground.
It is a general emergency code and so doesn’t specify what the problem is on board. It is a “catch-all” for any emergency situation that isn’t a hijacking (7500) or radio failure (7600).
Following the emergency alert, the plane was routed directly onto the approach path and safely touched down on Runway 05R at Manchester Airport without further incident.
After circling the airport it touched down at 3:05 pm, 45 minutes later than the scheduled arrival time of 2:20 pm. The nature of the incident that led to an emergency being declared has not yet been confirmed.
The Mirror has contacted easyJet for comment.
Earlier this month, hundreds of UK flights were delayed due to an issue at the UK’s air traffic control.
There was widespread disruption across UK airspace on July 7 after an issue at the Met Office meant the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) didn’t receive weather information.
As a result, Ryanair saw 155 of its flights delayed, impacting almost 30,000 passengers, with delays of up to three hours. EasyJet was hit harder, with 253 flights delayed – 13% of its total number of planned departures today.
“A Met Office technical issue overnight meant that we were not receiving vital weather information into our NATS systems this morning. Accurate weather information is vital for air traffic controllers and pilots in managing flights safely,” a spokesperson for NATS said at the time.
“As a result, some air traffic restrictions were put in place early this morning and these have now been removed. We continue to work with the Met Office, who are working to fully resolve the problem.”
