Passengers aboard a Jet2 flight bound for a popular vacation destination found themselves 1,000km off course following an in-flight emergency.
Flight LS167 took off from Glasgow Airport en route to Arrecife Airport in Lanzarote at approximately 3:30 pm on Thursday. While cruising at 37,000ft off the coast of Portugal, about two and a half hours into the journey, the Boeing 737-800’s pilots decided to divert due to a medical issue. The plane made a swift descent to Faro Airport on Portugal’s Algarve coast.
An emergency code of 7700 was transmitted to alert air traffic control of the onboard emergency, allowing the aircraft to land with priority and emergency services to be ready on the ground. This code is a general emergency signal and does not specify the exact nature of the issue, serving as a broad indicator for any emergency situation other than hijacking (7500) or radio failure (7600).
Reports suggest that the emergency was related to a medical incident. Consequently, emergency response teams were on standby upon the plane’s arrival in Faro. Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 indicates that the aircraft altered its course over the Atlantic Ocean along Portugal’s western coast before descending and eventually landing in Faro around 6:20 pm after turning north.
Following a brief stopover in Faro, the flight resumed its journey, departing Portugal at about 8 pm and reaching Lanzarote at 9:35 pm.
Efforts to obtain comments from Jet2 regarding the incident are ongoing.
In a separate incident, an easyJet flight declared an emergency while approaching Manchester Airport this week. Passengers traveling from Amsterdam on flight U22164 aboard an Airbus A320-200 experienced a mid-air alert as the plane circled in a holding pattern near Manchester. The pilot deviated from the normal flight path into Manchester Airport, circling north of the city before declaring the emergency about an hour after takeoff, just before the descent into Manchester.
The aircraft was promptly directed to the approach path and safely landed on Runway 05R at Manchester Airport, arriving at 3:05 pm, 45 minutes later than the scheduled time of 2:20 pm.
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