British Broadcasting Corporation

Page last updated at 16:23 GMT, Friday, 1 August 2008 17:23 UK

Plane diverts after smoke alert

grounded aircraft
The crew told of smelling smoke in the cockpit

A flight from Manchester to the George Best Belfast City Airport has made an emergency landing on the Isle of Man.

Eighty-nine passengers were on board the Flybe aircraft. Four passengers suffered minor injuries when disembarking the Embraer 195.

The company said passengers on the plane should arrive in Belfast shortly after 1800 BST on Friday.

A woman who was on the flight said they could smell smoke and heard a lot of noise from the plane.

"The captain was doing a lot of talking to the stewards. He was in and out of the cockpit," he said.

"It was probably about 10 minutes before he said anything to us, but then they just told us everything was fine and we would be landing as normal.

"But then obviously we didn't land as normal, we landed in the Isle of Man."

The aircraft made an emergency descent into the Isle of Man Airport and landed at about 1317 BST.

A Flybe spokeswoman said the "likely cause of the incident seemed to be a failure of the air conditioning and circulation system".




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