Aer Lingus flights to and from Belfast City Airport were cancelled this past Sunday evening after one of their planes encountered an emergency incident while landing. The plane had flown from Edinburgh with no passengers on board and was carrying only four crew members. The cause of the emergency is currently thought to have been the strong winds which were forecasted to hit Northern Ireland on Sunday. Although no injuries have been reported, pictures of the nose of the plane resting on the runway tarmac clearly showed that the nose wheel had collapsed. Emergency services including the police, fire service and ambulance teams were sent to the airport immediately after the emergency was reported.
Neither the airline nor the airport has yet given any details of what happened before or during the hard landing of the plane. “Emerald Airlines” informed Irish authorities about the incident and announced that the AAIB had launched an investigation. Belfast City Airport, however, told passengers to get in touch with their airlines instead of traveling to the airport at that time. They also warned that the runway was expected to remain closed until the following day.
Belfast International Airport had to divert at least four planes as a result of the incident at Belfast City Airport Sunday evening, including flights from London City and Leeds Bradford Airport. Five flights were also diverted to Dublin Airport due to the emergency incident. Belfast International Airport management posted on social media just before 18:30 that it was “close to capacity” with the flights that were already redirected to the airport plus its heavier-than-usual schedule. With limited resources, the airport management warned they could take a limited number of redirected flights that evening.
The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) is now said to be helping Belfast City Airport manage the damaged plane. A team of inspectors from the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) has been deployed to the site for investigation
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