I looked for a light from the tower after we turned off of the runway, but did not see one, so just taxied to the FBO. I quickly grabbed a flashlight, turned it on, and handed it to my daughter sitting in the right seat, and told her to hold the light on the instruments for landing. It was night, and all lights just went out. I was making a planned stop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and had turned on final for landing. On one of my flights from Iowa to Pittsburgh I lost all electrical in the plane, a Cessna 172. He could acknowledge the receipt of the instructions by pressing Ident on his transponder. As he approached the Pittsburgh area, and had the Allegheny VOR tuned in, he received a call from Flight Service over the VOR, with instructions for an approach to Allegheny County Airport. He was able to receive VOR signals and flew his flight plan. He continued his flight, and did squawk 7600, to let ATC know that he was unable to hear or talk to them. The weather was IFR part of the way, with small areas of VFR. He never really found the reason for the loss of communications, but his actions showed that training pays off. He said that he had filed an IFR flight plan, and before getting outside of the Chicago Departure, he lost the ability to communicate with ATC. The transponder does not work, either.Ī friend of mine in Pittsburgh was telling me about a flight he had in his twin Piper from Chicago, DuPage, to Allegheny County, Pittsburgh. Usually it is the alternator, or generator, that fails, and then the battery runs down so the radios no longer work. I have had complete electrical failure in an airplane at least 3 times since I started flying.

You probably will fly your entire aviation career without ever needing one of those squawk codes, but if you do need one, will you remember what to squawk and what procedures you should follow after doing that? I guess that no one really wants to hijack a single engine airplane. In over 40 years of flying, I have never had to use 7500. Remember all of those instructions we got from our CFI when training for private pilot or instrument rating? The squawk codes: 7700 for emergencies, 7600 for communication failure, or 7500 for hijack.

Atc code 7700