By GB News (World News) | Created at 2026-09-25 08:45:59 | Updated at 2026-09-25 10:49:14
2 hours ago
A Ryanair flight has been forced to make an unexpected U-turn and return to Portugal after the captain broadcast the universal hijack alert.
The plane had departed Francisco Sá Carneiro airport in Porto at 10.25pm bound for Dublin on what should have been a routine two-hour service to the Irish capital.
Roughly 15 minutes into the journey, as the aircraft headed north towards the Portuguese-Spanish border, the pilot transmitted squawk code 7500, a signal used across global aviation to indicate a hijacking attempt or unauthorised cockpit intrusion.
The code immediately flagged the situation to air traffic controllers and triggered security protocols on the ground.
Ryanair subsequently attributed the diversion to a "false security report."
According to reports from multiple outlets, the incident was sparked by a 48-year-old female passenger who allegedly passed several sheets of paper to a cabin crew member shortly after departure.
The woman reportedly told the flight attendant that she was being trailed by three individuals on board and requested that the documents outlining her concerns be forwarded to the captain.
Upon receiving this information, the pilot took the decision to activate the hijack alert and turn the aircraft around.
After the Boeing 737 touched down back at Porto close to midnight, the woman was taken off the plane and her identity was confirmed by local authorities.
Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha reported that she was subsequently allowed back on board "without police verifying her allegations."
Former TAP Air Portugal pilot and aviation author Jose Correia Guedes offered further detail on the sequence of events.
Mr Guedes said: "Upon passing FL120, the captain entered code 7500 into the transponder, signalling an attempted hijacking or intrusion into the cockpit."
The flight was forced to return to Aeroporto Francisco Sa Carneiro
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He explained that the crew requested radar vectors for a return to the airport and asked for authorities to be alerted.
"When code 7500 is entered into an aircraft's transponder, an alarm is automatically triggered on the air traffic controllers' panels," he added.
He noted controllers first seek confirmation since the code is occasionally entered by mistake.
Air traffic control then established direct communication with the flight crew and provided support until the Boeing 737 landed safely at Porto near midnight, with PSP police assuming responsibility for the situation.
A Ryanair flight had to be diverted due to the alert being sent
A Ryanair spokesman told the Mirror that the flight had returned to Porto shortly after take-off "due to a false security report," adding that the latter was "quickly resolved" before the service continued to Dublin "following a two hour and 33 minute delay".
The aircraft departed Porto again shortly before 1.30am on Wednesday and touched down in Dublin at approximately 3.15am.
The flight arrived around two and a half hours behind schedule.
The episode echoes an incident in July when LOT Polish Airlines flight 155, operated by Bulgaria's Electra Airways and carrying 180 passengers from Warsaw to Tel Aviv, inadvertently broadcast the same hijack squawk code.
That transmission prompted Israel, Bulgaria and Turkey to scramble fighter jets before the alert was traced to an incorrectly configured transponder, with LOT spokesman Krzysztof Moczulski describing it as "most likely human error".
