CX flight briefly lost contact in Eastern Europe, later landed safely

A Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to London reportedly lost contact over the air space of Romania, prompting NATO to send fighter jets as a warning. The Cathay aircraft eventually landed safely.

The Hungarian Defense Minister posted on social media that an Airbus A350 aircraft, while flying over Romania en route from Hong Kong to London at around 2 PM local time last Saturday, failed to contact civil air traffic control, triggering a NATO rapid response alert.

Hungary, which borders Romania, sent fighter jets and issued a visual warning over the Hungarian border. The Cathay aircraft immediately contacted air traffic control, and the fighter jets returned to their air base.

A review of the flight records for that day revealed the flight to be Cathay Pacific CX257, which has a maximum capacity of 334 passengers.

It departed from Hong Kong on Saturday morning. Flight tracking websites show that after approximately 10:00 AM, it entered Romanian airspace, flew at an altitude of 38,000 feet for about 40 minutes, entered Hungary, and finally arrived at London Heathrow Airport on time.