Emergency Squawk Alerts

Summary: How the map automatically highlights aircraft squawking an emergency code, and what the info panel says about the frequency.

The map automatically watches for aircraft transmitting one of the three international emergency squawk codes:

• 7500 — unlawful interference (hijack)
• 7600 — radio failure
• 7700 — general emergency

This is switched on by default — no setup needed. When an aircraft near the UK squawks one of these codes, the map automatically zooms to it and opens its info panel, and (if audio alerts are enabled) plays a distinct alert tone. The code itself is enough: an emergency is recognised from the squawk even when the data feed sends no emergency flag with it.

Which Frequency

A crew declaring an emergency stay on the sector or airfield frequency they are already working, so the info panel’s Listen on block headlines that frequency, marked emergency declared here, with Guard (121.5, or 243.0 for military aircraft) as the first alternative “only if contact on the working frequency is lost”. A radio failure keeps the working frequency in front and notes that blind calls may come on Guard too.

The map also shows traffic over near Europe. An emergency there is still marked in the aircraft’s info panel and shown in red in the aircraft table, but it doesn’t zoom the map or sound the alert.