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Updated 11.20am
The passenger plane which was forced to make an emergency landing at Cork Airport last night had a faulty instrument in the cockpit, investigators have confirmed.
The Boeing 737-300 flight from Belfast to Reus in Spain diverted to Cork shortly after take-off due to a suspected fuel leak.
The pilot declared an emergency and the airport’s emergency plan was put into place to guide the plane to safety.
The plane, which was carrying 150 passengers and 5 crew members, landed safely at Cork Airport at 11.45pm.
In a statement, the plane’s operators Air Contractors said that engineers have established that the problem was caused by a faulty instrument in the cockpit and the aircraft has now been fixed. Airport fire crew confirmed that there was no fuel leak on the plane.
All passengers were accommodated in local hotels overnight, and are due to continue their journey today.
Air Contractors said that a replacement crew is in Cork and the flight is due to depart before 12 noon, depending on the air traffic restrictions as a result of the strike by air traffic controllers in France.
Originally published 7.20am
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Can’t help feeling that had this been a Ryanair aircraft, the airline name would have featured, prominently, in the headline.
Agree.
As far as I’m know, a lot of flights booked through Ryanair are then operated by Air Contractors or Air Explorers. I was looking at booking flights from Dublin to Bremen this week through Ryanair, and it said that the flight was to be operated by Air Contractors.
Thats for the summer, their based in Dublin, its a different aircraft though, the one last night was a boeing 737-300, Europe Airpost livery, the ones Ryanair are using are 737-400′s
Presumably to peak traffic without leasing additional aircraft.
Aaron B think you need to check your facts as Ryanair fleet consists almost entirely of B737-800′s actually think the entire fleet is 800′s
My facts are correct, Ryanair have leased in 4 737-400′s for their summer schedule in Dublin, operated by the lessors flight crew and Ryanair cabin crew, they have also leased 6 737-800′s from Air Dubai for their Stansted summer schedule, operated by both Ryanair flight and cabin crew
Aaron B you neglected to mention the entire Ryanair fleet of at least 300 B737-800′s a huge amount which operate out of Dublin am not as close to the ground as you are regarding four leased in aircraft you initially implied that the entire fleet was 800′s
Ryanair use the Boeing 737-800 (the 737-8AS to be exact). All aircraft (about 300) are the same.
We know they have a fleet of 737-800′s but in this case we are talking about the leased aircraft in the comments above, the line ‘have leased 4 737-400′s for their summer schedule’ I thought, would have been clear for most to understand.
To clear it up, Ryanair operate a fleet of over 300 737-800′s, they have leased into Dublin, 4 737-400′s for the schedule along with their usual 20 odd 737-800 summer based aircraft.
I think you will find all ryanair aircraft are 737-800 ng aircraft
You are a 100% right
All 800 series only.no other.
Last line should read 400s
So plane makes emergency landing due to suspected fuel leak…….3 comments
Someone injured in turbulence on Ryanair flight……..>50 comments
No wonder the journal loves a good Ryanair story!
“Someone injured in turbulence on a Ryanair flight …….>50 comments”
Was it not five people who were injured?
Ted Carroll 22 comments and rising at the moment !!
It’s getting going alright Bill! Maybe people are hoping it’s something to do with Ryanair.
Throw a jubilee clip on her and drive on
Irish Air Contractors would never survive as an Irish Agri Contractor.
Last night I was in bed and hear this plane flight past my house in the city centre… So I look out the window when I saw the airplane flighting 3 times unusually low, and in different directions all.I am glad they land safe because it looked a little bit scary.
As I discovered only last week, from TV, a Boeing 737 cannot dump fuel as when they were first built they were for short haul so to minimise on weight they didn’t put in a fuel dumping system.
Hence, a 737 has to circle before an emergency landing to burn off fuel, although, sounds like they had an impromptu fuel dump and hence the need to land.
She was about 25/30 minutes from the south coast of Cork, over the Celtic sea and North West of France, she made the call, did a 180 and from 34,000ft dropped like a stone at 2000fpm and straight in on Corks RWY 35, she didn’t circle or fly over the city as she wasn’t overweight for her landing. Great execution by the crew, sounded calm and in control the whole time while on the airwaves.
Could of used a new photo of Cork Airports lovely terminal…
Or a photo of the Europe Airpost liveried B737-300 involved
Was thinking the same thing Vincent, this is the old terminal and RTE have the wall ant a series f skips on there story cover.
Thats a class photo.
Kudos to Darren Forde.
Why was my entirely factual comment on Air Contractors removed from this discussion ?
When in doubt, read the site’s commenting guidelines and you’ll usually figure it out.
Censorship waaaaaaaaah, fascist state etc.
And thejournal.ie still hasn’t done an article on flights that are cancelled due to this strike in France.
We were on one of Air Contractors flights from Lanzarote 2 years ago and had a 25 hour delay
Was the delay caused by the airline, weather or an air traffic controllers strike? It’s a very broad and insinuating comment to make without the details.
Crocodylus pontifex ….that image above actually is of the Aircraft involved, and the reason there is no picture of the new terminal is because the aircraft is parked on-stand in front of the old terminal and the 2 would not fit in the same shot !! And in relation to the Ryanair using air contractors, Ryanair do not use them at all ! All Ryanair flights are operated my Ryanair!! Ryanairs fleet consists of 97% Boeing 737-800 series aircraft, and the remaining 3% are 737-200s !! No -400s or anything else, and yes the have wet-leased 6 Fly Dubai 737-800s based in DUB and STN …those aircraft are leased due to a delay in ryanairs delivery of 182 brand new 737-800s and 6 aircraft were sold to another airline in anticipation of delivery but delivery didn’t come in time
@nick
Ryanair haven’t flown a 737-200 in years, they are long gone.
You might want to check your facts Nick. Air Explorer are operating Ryanair flights out of Dublin at the moment with 737-400s. Google it.
Time for a fact injection. Rynair’s entire fleet is made up of 300 Boeing 737-800. Yes they are wet leasing a few aircraft for the summer season from Air Explorer and Fly Dubai to make up the shortage while they are waiting on new aircraft to be delivered from Boeing.
They are Dry Leasing the Flydubai aircraft.
737-200′s? The last Ryanair flight flown by one of those classics was at least 9 years ago. They’ve 3 737-800′s leased from FlyDubai in a hybrid livery, 2 737-400′s wet leased from Air Explore (no Ryanair ID at all) & 2 more 737-400′s due from Air Contractors early next month (both of these are coming from Safair from South Africa, an airline owned by the same company that owns Air Contractors) wether those 2 aircraft will have any Ryanair ID we’ll find out next week! Air Contractors are actually much larger airline than most people think, operating many cargo flights each night for FedEx/UPS/DHL
Glad all are ok, hope they are not delayed too much… Gatwick was up in heap yesterday over French strikes..lovely French, strike over everything!
150 passengers on a 147 capacity aircraft. People should get their facts right before publishing
I didn’t know Ryanair leases the plane as I thought all the planes were purchased.
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