Crash landing causes mass delays

The Boeing 737-300 at Birmingham International Airport Enlarge Image

The crash landing of a freight plane at Birmingham International Airport has caused widespread disruption.

More than 1,000 passengers have been bussed to other runways including Manchester, Bristol, Coventry and Nottingham East Midlands Airport.

The airport fully reopened on Thursday afternoon but airport bosses say there is a large backlog of flights to be dealt with.

The undercarriage of the TNT Boeing 737-300 failed, but nobody was hurt.

The plane has been taken to the side of the main runway.

HISTORY OF PLANE 00-TND From 1987: Used by Piedmont From 1989: Used by US Air From 1997: Stored by US Airways in the Mojave Desert, USA From 2002: Used by TNT Airways and converted to freight

The airport reopened shortly after 1600 BST.

No flights were able to land since before 0600 BST and at least 100 scheduled departures were stranded.

Travellers whose inbound flights landed elsewhere were being brought back to Birmingham.

An airport spokeswoman said staff would be working throughout the night to clear the backlog and catch up.

She said: "It is an organised operation but passengers do face disruption. There are certainly more passengers in the terminal than usual.

"But we're coping very well, all the catering outlets are able to provide refreshments to passengers."

The plane was travelling from Liege in Belgium to Stansted Airport, when it was diverted to Birmingham because of bad weather and then developed the technical problem.

Eighty-six planes had been scheduled to land and 115 to depart during the closure.