Holiday flight in emergency landing

The plane was diverted to Manchester Airport

A holiday jet on a flight from Portugal to Glasgow has been forced to make an emergency landing.

The Britannia Boeing 757 aircraft, which had 182 holidaymakers on board, landed at Manchester Airport after a technical fault was discovered on the plane.

The passengers were then transferred to another plane, a spokesman for Manchester Airport said.

The plane, flight number BY 053b, was en-route from Faro in Portugal to Glasgow Airport and landed safely in Manchester at 0018 GMT on Friday.

The captain took the decision to divert when it was discovered that there was a fault with the anti-skid mechanism.

'Landed safely'

This could have made the aircraft dangerous to land in Glasgow where the ground was wet.

Manchester Airport was chosen as an alternative because of its dry conditions and long runway.

A spokesman for Manchester Airport said: "Our runway was dry, the plane landed safely on a local emergency stand.

"Passengers were transferred to another aircraft after the baggage had been taken off the plane and reloaded on to the substitute aircraft."

A spokesman for Britannia said the passengers arrived in Glasgow at 0344 GMT.