EasyJet Flight 6074

EasyJet Flight 6074 was a scheduled flight on 15 September 2006 from Alicante, Spain, to Bristol, United Kingdom, on an Airbus A319. The flight suffered severe electrical failures during its flight and, as a result, it nearly collided with an American Airlines Boeing 777. The pilots continued their flight to Bristol and executed a successful emergency landing saving all 144 occupants onboard.

Incident

On 15 September 2006, about 85 minutes into the flight, EasyJet Flight 6074 experienced a major electrical failure in its systems near Nantes, France, while cruising at 32,000 feet. Multiple systems became inoperative, including the aircraft's radios, autopilot, electronic centralised aircraft monitor, the captain's electronic flight instrument display, and traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS). As a consequence of these failures, the A319 nearly collided with American Airlines Flight AAL63, a Boeing 777-223ER. The transponder was also knocked out, making the air traffic controller (ATC) unable to track the aircraft. Ten minutes before a shift change, the ATC noticed that Flight 6074 had disappeared from radar. The ATC quickly asked the pilots of a nearby aircraft, American Airlines Flight 63, to descend to 31,000 feet to avoid a potential collision with the EasyJet aircraft and if they could see it in their TCAS, but AAL63 replied negative. After the ATC shift change, the new controller again commanded Flight 63 to descend to 31,000 feet. At 11:01:17 local time, Flight 63 then began its descent. A few moments later, Flight 63 reported spotting an "EasyJet 737" flying overhead, undetected by the TCAS. Moments later, the pilots of EasyJet Flight 6074 managed to reconfigure their transponder and then a minute later, their squawk code changed to the number 7700, or the General Emergency code number. Before landing, several attempts were made to contact the ATC using mobile phones without success. The crew was unable to reconfigure the majority of the aircraft's electrical systems and continued on to land uneventfully at Bristol Airport without any further communication with air traffic control or restoration of the affected systems.