Singapore Airlines today denied a UK tabloid report that there was an emergency aboard one of its inbound flights.
“The pilots confirmed that there was no emergency on board,” SIA told Coconuts this morning in a statement.
The carrier made the same denial to The Daily Mail, which reported Saturday that there had been no emergency aboard flight SQ37 from Los Angeles after a “7500” transponder code, used to indicate a hijacking emergency, was sent out.
According to its report, the signal was detected by an online flight tracker and sent shortly after takeoff Friday from LAX. But it seemed like it was a technical glitch as the signal was no longer received and the flight continued as per normal.
The flight was scheduled to arrive yesterday at around 7:50am.
Journalist Noreen Jameel first tweeted about the incident on Saturday saying: “Watch. Singapore Airlines flight SQ37 sent out 7500 (possible hijack) transponder code shortly after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport.”
Watch
— Noreen (@njameel9) June 11, 2022
Singapore Airlines flight #SQ37 sent out 7500 (possible #hijack) transponder code shortly after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport. #LAX
There are three emergency transponder codes by the International Civil Aviation Organisation: 7500 for the hijacking of the aircraft, 7600 for radio failure or loss of communication, and 7700 for other emergencies.
In 1991, four Pakistani terrorists hijacked a Singapore Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to demand to release of the husband of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. All four of them were killed. No hostages were harmed.
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