A Jet2 flight to Tenerife was reportedly forced to emergency land at a UK airport following a cracked windshield. Flight tracking services show that flight LS633 diverted to Manchester due to the aircraft issue.
The flight had taken off from East Midlands Airport, but was forced to redirect shortly after take off ahead of the two-and-a-half hour flight, reports the Mirror. According to Flight Aware, travellers had to disembark the plane in Manchester, rather than the sunny landscape of the Canary Islands just before 11.30am on Thursday morning.
It comes after a similar incident in December last year when shocking pictures emerged of the cracked windscreen of a plane cockpit after the aircraft was struck by lightning. A passenger on flight LM26, which was travelling from Manchester Airport to Aberdeen, said she was sleeping when pilots turned back, signalling the emergency code 7700.
The Loganair plane returned to Manchester about 29 minutes after take-off. Morag McLeod told The Mirror that she was travelling with her partner from Houston, Texas, and arrived in Manchester at around 9.30am.
They were forced to wait several hours for their connecting flight, which they eventually boarded in the afternoon. She recalled how she was asleep when the plane was hit by lightning and initially thought it was turbulence.
However, she said her partner woke her up as he had seen “what looked like lightning” before the captain announced the aircraft had been struck. The passenger said: “I was actually sleeping as we were a connecting flight from Houston.
“We arrived in Manchester airport at 9.30am and had to wait several hours for our connecting flight. I felt what I thought was turbulence, however my partner knows a bit about aviation and he had seen what looked like lightning and he awoke me just prior to the captain announcing that the aircraft had been struck.
“My partner knew something wasn’t right as the aircraft stopped ascending and began circling in the air which he believes was the aircraft circling Manchester airport awaiting clearance to emergency land.” While being escorted out of the plane, Morag said she snapped a photo of the cockpit which shows the cracked windscreen as the plane was parked at Manchester Airport.