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Transponder codes - get them right

Remember how your instructor always told you to be careful when setting squawk codes? Mine always told me to turn the box to standby when setting a new code; yours may have had a different trick. The reason is the same: so that you didn’t, albeit momentarily, broadcast a code that sets alarm bells ringing back at air traffic control centres.

Last week, a Varig pilot in Brazil managed to ignore the advice, and set 7500 (‘hijack’) briefly on his transponder – by mistake. Despite his protestations that he did not have a hijack situation, the flight became an ATC emergency, and it was not until several hours after landing that pilots and crew were released, once the authorities were satisfied that nothing had been amiss on the flight.

Rules state that once a hijack code has been transmitted, the authorities must take it seriously, however much a pilot may retract it: after all, he or she may have a gun at his or her head…

It’s also inopportune that the incident should occur in Brazil, a country whose ATC system is under scrutiny following September’s mid-air in which a Boeing 737 was brought down, and to which a faulty transponder is believed to have contributed.

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