Damaged transponder causes chaos in Bulgaria, Türkiye, Cyprus and Israel

The Air Force scrambled a MiG-29 on June 30, after receiving information from NATO’s Combined Air Operations Centre in Torrejón, Spain. A Polish LOT Airbus A320 flying from Warsaw to Tel Aviv and operated by Bulgarian carrier Electra Airways sent transponder code 7500, indicating an illegal intrusion on board.

At 1:57 p.m., the plane entered Bulgarian airspace and was patrolled from the Danube until it entered Türkiye, where it was escorted by two Turkish F-16s. The passenger plane requested an emergency landing at Paphos Airport in Cyprus, but was denied due to heavy traffic and returned and landed in Burgas at 5:15 p.m. According to Polish authorities, the cause of the false hijacking alert was a failure in the transponder. The plane took off from Burgas at 11 p.m.

Editor: Ivo Ivanov