NATO scrambles Eurofighter Typhoons in emergency response after BA flight 'goes silent'

Fighter jets intercepted a British Airways flight after the pilots suddenly stopped responding to air traffic controllers.

The British Airways (BA) flight was headed from Paphos, Cyprus, to London Heathrow, on Saturday (17 October) when air traffic control lost radio contact as it was about to fly over Germany.

The radio silence sparked concerns back on the ground and two Eurofighter Typhoons were then sent out by the German military after the pilots did not respond to calls on either the plane’s main or back-up frequencies for around half an hour, The Sun reports.

Fortunately, the pilots were well and nothing untoward had happened - although it’s still unclear why communication stopped.

A source told the publication that the crew were left feeling ‘pretty embarrassed’ by the situation.

The source continued: “You could hear the conversation between the British Airways pilots and a fighter jet pilot on the emergency frequency.

“The pilots wanted to avoid the passengers getting worried, and asked the fighter jets to stay behind the plane.

Two Typhoons were sent up after the plane lost contact (Joan Valls/Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“But the order of the fighter jets was to inspect the cockpit so he had to fly parallel to the plane.

“The inspection was successful; no terrorism, just perhaps sleeping pilots.

“The fighter jets stayed with the BA flight to the German border.”

According to the publication, the pilots are still working while the investigation into what happened continues.

In a statement to The Sun, a British Airways spokesperson said: “All of the procedures for situations like this were followed.”

LADbible has contacted British Airways for comment.

It's not the first incident of this type

Mid-flight loss of communications - also known as prolonged loss of communication, or PLOC - is taken very seriously by both civil aviation and the military.

Even breaks in communication of just a few minutes are treated as potentially safety risks and are acted on.

Thankfully, such incidents are rare and they often have pretty mundane causes, such as technical faults or the crew mistakingly tuning to the wrong frequency.

For example, in February 2024, a Scandinavian Airlines plane was intercepted by RAF Typhoons and escorted to Manchester after a similar loss of communications.

According to Aero Time, the flight lost contact just as it crossed the east coast of England and was descending towards Manchester for landing.

This resulted in the RAF Quick Reaction Alert force scrambling a pair of Typhoons to intercept the aircraft to try and determine what was going on.

By the time the trio of planes had met, communication had been reinstated and an airport spokesperson later said the interruption was due to a ‘technical fault’.

The Manchester Airport spokesperson said it was ‘common practice’ for planes that have lost comms mid-flight to be escorted to their destination.

“We understand that to have been a technical fault and comms has now been restored. The flight was destined for Manchester so passengers haven’t been displaced but we have put on extra staff to support any passengers that may need it,” they said.