According to reports by British media such as Sky News and The Guardian on October 5th, a British Airways flight departing from London for Chicago experienced a sudden technical malfunction during flight. Within just 7 minutes, the aircraft descended over 8,000 meters and emitted the emergency code '7700'. Subsequently, the aircraft turned back to London.
The involved flight was British Airways BA295, operating on a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. The flight encountered an anomaly while flying over Ireland after taking off from London Heathrow Airport.
After BA295 Flight was declared in emergency mode, passengers on board used oxygen masks. British Mirror
Flight tracking data shows that the aircraft was already at a cruising altitude of about 36,000 feet (about 11,000 meters) at the time, and then quickly descended to about 9,000 feet (about 2,740 meters). In approximately 7 minutes, the aircraft descended by about 27,000 feet, or about 8,230 meters. The aviation professional media AeroInside reported that the average descent rate was about 3,800 feet per minute.
During this process, the aircraft's transponder sends out the code '7700'. This is a code used internationally to indicate that the aircraft is in a general emergency state; it does not represent a specific type of malfunction.
It is noteworthy that, based on the information disclosed so far, this was not an accidental loss of control by the aircraft, but rather an emergency descent carried out by the crew. According to AeroInside, during the incident, the cabin experienced a lack of pressure, and oxygen masks were deployed. The crew quickly lowered the plane to around 9,000 feet.
The aircraft then abandoned its attempt to continue flying toward Chicago and turned back to England near Ireland. Due to issues related to handling the remaining fuel, the plane flew over Bristol Bay for about 4 hours before safely landing at London Heathrow Airport around 5 p.m. local time.
British Airways subsequently confirmed that the aircraft returned to Heathrow Airport due to a "technical issue". The aircraft landed safely, and passengers deboarded as normal. British Airways stated that the company is helping affected passengers rebook their travel arrangements. As for the specific technical fault that caused this emergency situation, British Airways has not disclosed any further details.
