A routine Orange County flight to San Jose took a sudden detour when the crew sent out aviation’s most serious distress code
What should have been a quick, forgettable flight up the California coast turned into a tense hour in the sky for passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines jet on Friday.
Southwest Airlines Flight 3396 left John Wayne Airport in Orange County around 11:30 a.m. local time on Nov. 6, bound for San Jose Mineta International Airport. Not long after takeoff, the crew reported trouble with one of the plane’s engines, and the flight never made it to Northern California. It was instead rerouted to Los Angeles International Airport, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson and the Los Angeles Times.
The Signal Every Pilot Hopes Never to Send
The aircraft was flying at roughly 20,000 feet when the crew set its transponder to 7700, the universal code that tells air traffic controllers a flight is dealing with a general emergency, the Times reported. That four-digit entry moves a plane to the front of the line, clears a path through crowded airspace and puts emergency crews on the ground on alert…