Feil squawk- Unlawful interference istedet for loss of comm. - Curt Lewis

Incident: Lufthansa Cityline E190 near Frankfurt on Feb 19th 2018, loss of communication, aircraft squawked unlawful interference on error

A Lufthansa Cityline Embraer ERJ190, registration D-AECC perforing flight LH-975 from Aberdeen,SC (UK) to Frankfurt/Main (Germany), had already performed first descent towards Frankfurt/Main and was maintaining FL260 at about 07:48L (06:48Z), when communication with the aircraft was lost. The crew shortly afterwards transmitted the code for unlawful interference on their transponder changing the code to loss of communication a few minutes later while turning away from the aerodrome again. Two fighter aircraft were readied (but not yet launched) to intercept the Embraer, when communication was restored, the aircraft received vectors for the approach and turned around a second time now to the south again. The aircraft continued for a safe landing on Frankfurt's runway 07L about 36 minutes after the loss of communication. The occurrence aircraft returned to service after about 5 hours on the ground. The flight trajectory (Graphics: AVH/Google Earth):