Emergency Alerts¶
Frank's Flight Radar watches every aircraft's transponder squawk code for the three internationally recognised emergency codes:
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 7500 | Unlawful interference (hijack) |
| 7600 | Radio failure |
| 7700 | General emergency |
Visual highlighting¶
Any aircraft squawking one of these codes is drawn differently from normal traffic, regardless of your other display settings:
- Its dot and heading line are always red (not affected by colour theme)
- An extra red ring is drawn around the dot so it stands out even at a glance
- Its callsign label is always shown, overriding the Flight Labels setting
Audible alert & auto-follow¶
If Settings → Buzz on Emergency is On (the default), the first time an emergency squawk is detected:
- The device automatically enters follow mode on that aircraft — the same lock-on behaviour as tapping FOLLOW yourself. If you're already following it, nothing changes; if you're following something else (or nothing), the view snaps straight to the emergency aircraft.
- Its follow reticle is drawn red (rather than the usual theme colour) for as long as it's the aircraft being tracked, and its current squawk code is printed underneath it alongside altitude/speed.
- The screen bezel flashes a red ring ten times
- The device beeps ten times (2.2 kHz tones)
This happens once per aircraft per emergency, with a 60-second cooldown — the same aircraft won't re-trigger the audible/flash/re-follow alert again within 60 seconds, so a single ongoing emergency doesn't repeatedly interrupt you. New updates to its position still redraw it in red on every refresh regardless. Follow it as long as you like, or tap UNFOLLOW at any time — it won't re-lock you back on unless a fresh alert fires.
Turning Buzz on Emergency off disables the audible alert, ring flash, and auto-follow entirely, but the visual highlighting on the radar (red dot, ring, forced label) always stays on — there's no way to hide an emergency squawk from the display itself.