A flight was forced into an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport after a fire broke out in the cabin.
Just minutes after take-off from London, the TAP Air Portugal was forced to make a U-turn after flames began to blaze.
During the plane’s ascent, crew transmitted an emergency alert at 4,300 feet and requested to immediately turn around after reporting a fire in the galley.
The Airbus A320 issued the emergency code – a squawk 7700 – and performed a tight loop south of the airport at approximately 9:41am on Sunday.
The plane touched down safely and was parked on a remote stand for technical assessment.
Flight TP1329 later departed Gatwick at 12.20pm and arrived in Porto at 2.22pm GMT, around three hours later than its scheduled arrival time of 11:30am.
It is unclear if TAP flew the same 26-year-old plane or whether they flew on a replacement.
TAP is Portugal’s national airline based in Lisbon and operates flights to more than 90 destinations worldwide.
The flight issued the alert after a fire was reported in the galley
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But it joined a host of other flights to have declared a squawk 7700 this week.
Just days earlier, an easyJet flight set to land in Paris was diverted to Manchester just 25 minutes into the flight.
The flight landed in Manchester around 8.23am, with a rescheduled flight taking off shortly before 10.40am. The plane would eventually arrive in Paris at 12.44pm.
Confirming the incident, an easyJet spokesman said: “Flight EZY52GV from Edinburgh to Paris CDG today diverted to Manchester due to a technical issue.
“The aircraft landed routinely in Manchester, where customers were transferred to another aircraft and crew to continue their journey to Paris.
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The flight landed at Porto three hours later than expected
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“The safety of our customers and crew is always easyJet’s highest priority, and the airline operates its fleet in full accordance with manufacturer guidelines.”
Also earlier this week, a WizzAir flight was escorted by Israeli fighter jets after a child changed their phone’s name to terrorist.
The flight landed in Tel Aviv, diverting from its original destination of Ben Gurion airport.
Concerned by a potential bomb threat, bomb-sniffing dogs were deployed upon the flights landing at Tel Aviv.
A spokesman for the Israeli Airports Authority said: “Due to suspicion of suspicious behaviour on the plane, security forces acted according to the procedures for such a case. The incident ended.
The plane landed and it was found that there was no actual incident.”
There were on average 36 squawk 7700 events each week from December 2022 to March 2024, according to data from FlightRadar24.
67 squawk 7700 events happened during the week commencing October 12 2023, the most during the period.
GB News has approached TAP Air Portugal for comment.