Virgin Australia A320 FIFO flight issues mayday

A Virgin Australia Regional Airlines flight VA 9275 to West Angeles issued a mayday 7700 code and has returned to Perth.

The flight, an Airbus A320, took off at 3.18 pm and was 20 minutes into the flight and reached an altitude of 33,000ft when it turned back and reduced altitude to 10,000ft indicating a pressurization failure.

The pilots declared an emergency as a pressurization failure required them to descend rapidly possibly across other traffic.

The A320 was given priority into Perth for runway 21 and landed safely at 4.09pm.