Can I find out why an aircraft squawked an emergency code (7x00)? I have recently been using a mobile app to track flights, which is really cool.  I live in the rural heartland of America, so it's an event for me to see an A380 actually flying.

Every once in a while, a squawk 7700 alert will come up, which I understand is the emergency transponder code. There are more, such as 7600 and 7500, which I find are less common.

My question is, is there a way to do some post-mortem followup as to why the aircraft squawked the code?  Is this public information that can be found by some agency such as the NTSB?
This FAA webpage has a list of the various transponder codes and what they are used for, which will give you an idea of what the problem is.  Unless there is an actual aircraft incident or accident which requires the FAA to investigate though, you won't be able to find a record of it.  In fact, pilots aren't even required to file a report unless requested, and those don't go into a public database.

For actual incidents or accidents, you can look at the NTSB Accident Database &amp; Synopses.

For pilot reports to the NASA ASRS self-reporting safety system, you can search their database.  If the pilot filed a report then you will see it show up there.

Commonly used emergency codes are:


7500 - Hijack Code
7600 - Loss of Radio Communications Code
7700 - Emergency Code


Also, some countries use the code 7000 for VFR traffic (which is not an emergency code), but the US uses 1200 instead.