A Ryanair flight bound for Dublin was forced to turn back to Porto after a passenger reportedly claimed she was being followed by three people shortly after take-off. The 48-year-old woman, a Brazilian national, allegedly handed a flight attendant sheets of paper detailing her claim and asked for them to be passed to the pilot.
Passenger removed and identified
The unnamed woman was removed from the Boeing 737 after it landed back at Porto and was identified by local authorities. Ryanair flight 7073 departed Porto again just before 1.30am and reached Dublin two-and-a-half hours late at around 3.15am local time.
Respected Portuguese daily Correio da Manha said the woman returned to the plane after being identified by authorities “without police verifying her allegations.” Other Portuguese press reported the female passenger had forced the plane to return after displaying “disorderly behaviour” and said she was escorted out of the airport by police.
Squawk code 7500 reported
Reports claimed the pilot sent a squawk code used to discreetly signal unlawful interference, such as a hijacking or a cockpit intrusion, to air traffic control ahead of the unscheduled turnaround. Former TAP pilot and aviation author Jose Correia Guedes appeared to confirm the reports, writing on X: “Last night, the Ryanair Boeing 737-8 MAX with registration EI-IJK took off from Porto bound for Dublin.
“Upon passing FL120, the captain entered code 7500 into the transponder, signalling an attempted hijacking or intrusion into the cockpit. The crew requested radar vectors to return to the airport and asked for the authorities to be notified.
“With the assistance of Air Traffic Control, the B737 landed without problems at Porto near midnight, and the PSP police took charge of the incident. When code 7500 is entered into an aircraft's transponder, an alarm is automatically triggered on the air traffic controllers' panels.
“This is followed by a confirmation because sometimes the code is entered by mistake, after which notification is made to the authorities and emergency services. Then, air traffic control establishes a privileged communication with the crew and provides all possible support until the problem is resolved.
“So far, I haven't been able to confirm whether there was an attempted hijacking or if it was just a misbehaving passenger who caused this incident. In either case, the aforementioned passenger now has a big problem to deal with.”
Ryanair statement
The PSP police force could not be reached for comment early this morning. Ryanair said in a statement: "This flight from Porto to Dublin returned to Porto shortly after take-off due to a false security report, which was quickly resolved before the flight continued to Dublin following a 2hr 33mins delay." The airline did not say whether the pilot had sent the squawk code.
