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Emergencies and special squawks

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What it does

A distress or urgency call outranks everything else xatc is doing. Say "mayday" or "pan-pan" on any staffed frequency, or squawk 7700, and ATC responds immediately with "roger, say souls on board and fuel remaining," at urgent priority, ahead of anything else queued. Whatever you answer with gets a bare "roger."

Two related codes get their own handling:

  • 7600 (lost communications / NORDO) -- ATC transmits "if you hear this transmission, ident" and then expects nothing further from you: no readbacks, no check-in reminders, and any pending readback or handoff is cleared.
  • 7500 (unlawful interference) -- ATC verifies discreetly, once: "verify squawking seven five zero zero."

A squawk code is only answered once, the first time you dial it in -- leaving it set doesn't repeat the call. Declaring an emergency by voice or by squawk both count as the same event, so whichever comes first is the one that triggers the response. A special code only counts with the transponder on or in ALT -- dialing 7700 in while it's off or in standby isn't seen, the same as a real controller's radar.

Cancelling

Say "cancel mayday," "cancel emergency," or "cancelling pan-pan" to end it -- ATC answers with a plain "roger," and every suppressed conformance callout starts speaking again immediately (unless a special squawk is still dialed in, which keeps them quiet on its own).

Everything else goes quiet

Once an emergency, lost-comms, or hijack code is active, every spoken conformance callout is suppressed for the rest of the flight -- you won't get called out for an altitude bust or a taxiway excursion while you're handling a real emergency. The events still happen and still reach the debrief; they're just not spoken over the radio. None of 7500/7600/7700 is itself treated as a "wrong squawk" conformance violation.

Limitations

  • No automated test exercises declaring an emergency during a pushback specifically, though the code checks for one ahead of the pushback-acknowledgement shortcut, so it takes priority regardless of phase.