Summary
- A Vienna-bound SWISS flight diverted to Munich due to an emergency. No injuries were reported.
- The Airbus A220-300 issued a Squawk 7700 signal, indicating an onboard emergency.
- The aircraft involved is 6.4 years old with 10,000+ flight hours.
A SWISS flight between Zurich and Vienna had to divert to Munich due to an emergency onboard. The initial stage of the flight seemed uneventful, with the plane even reaching cruising altitude, but a situation seemingly developed fast as the aircraft quickly diverted to Germany.
SWISS flight diverts to Munich
On August 5, a
Airbus A220-300 had to cut short its scheduled flight between Zurich Airport (ZRH) and Vienna International Airport (VIE) after an emergency onboard. The nature of the emergency is not clear, but the aircraft did reach its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet (per Flightradar24) before something went wrong.
According to reports, the pilots expedited their approach to nearby Munich International Airport (MUC), where they made a safe landing. Thankfully, no injuries have been reported from the incident. Simple Flying has contacted SWISS for a comment and will update the article when we receive a response.
The flight in question is a scheduled service LX 1578 between Zurich and Vienna, with a departure time of 12:25 and an arrival of 13:45. The aircraft involved in the incident is a 6.4-year-old Airbus A220-300 registered HB-JCK. It seats 145 passengers, and as of November 2023, it has accumulated more than 10,000 flight hours across 7,326 flight cycles, per ch-aviation.
Photo: Michael Derrer Fuchs | Shuttrstock
The incident comes just days after a SWISS Airbus A330, performing flight LX 15 from New York to Zurich, had to turn back to JFK Airport after suffering from a problem with its landing gear. It operated the same flight a day after and landed safely in Zurich.
Squawk 7700
According to reports, the A220 issued a Squawk 7700 code, which signals an onboard emergency. Depending on the emergency, pilots can issue Squawk codes with four digits between 0 and 7.
A Squawk 7700 can be used in case of an onboard emergency resulting from technical, environmental, or medical issues. It remains to be seen what the nature of the emergency was in the case of SWISS flight LX 1578.
Some other incidents of flights issuing the 7700 code this year included a Los Angeles-bound Lufthansa Airbus A380 diverting to Paris CDG due to a medical emergency onboard in January. In February, a Singapore Airlines Airbus A350 used the code after running low on fuel following failed landing attempts at Manchester Airport due to inclement weather.
Photo: WeChitra | Shutterstock
Some other notable transponder codes include 7600, 7500, 7000/1200, and 2000. These could be used for several types of emergencies, ranging from radio failure and medical emergencies to hijacking. Simple Flying has done a detailed analysis of these codes in the article below.
Related
Not Just 7700: 5 Other Notable Aviation Squawk Codes
A squawk code communicates an aircraft’s intention.
Other SWISS news
SWISS will soon see a change of leadership. It was recently announced that Jens Fehlinger, the current Managing Director of Lufthansa City Airlines,
will become the carrier’s CEO in October
. Fehlinger has been with the Lufthansa Group since 2006 and has held various management positions over the years.
Photo: Robert Buchel | Shutterstock
As far as fleet and operations are concerned, SWISS could ground six Airbus A320neo planes in the coming days due to the current issues with certain batches of the Pratt & Whiney PW1000G next-generation engine.
