A plane forced to divert from a UK airport due to high winds in Storm Jocelyn after a flight of almost 7,000 miles declared an emergency, believed to be about low fuel. The Singapore Airlines Airbus A350 aircraft tried twice to land at Manchester Airport.
However, the flight, which had been in the air for more than 14 hours declared an emergency believed to be over a lack of fuel, and instead flew south to East Midlands Airport where it landed safely, the Mirror reported.
It comes amid high winds caused by Storm Jocelyn in the area, sparking a yellow warning from the Met Office which remains in place until 3pm today. Public transport in many locations has been cancelled due to the severity of the storm. Train passengers were told there would be no journeys running north and drivers have been told to avoid the roads, and to not park near trees due to the risk of them toppling in the mighty gales.
Storm Jocelyn has brought fresh travel disruption to much of the UK, less than two days after Storm Isha left two people dead and thousands without power. The 10th named storm of the season brought an amber warning for wind to parts of Scotland on Wednesday morning with much of the UK covered by a yellow alert into Wednesday afternoon.
The Met Office said wind gusts reached 97mph in Capel Curig in Snowdonia, 79mph in Aberdaron, Wales, and 77mph at Shap, Cumbria. A search for a person reported to be in the sea at Porthcawl, south Wales, was suspended early on Wednesday.
Earlier this week air passengers described “flights from hell” as pilots struggled to land in Storm Isha’s 80mph winds, as 83 planes were forced to divert to far flung places including Hungary, Germany and France as they could not land. One Ryanair plane from Manchester came within metres of touching down at Dublin Airport, only to abandon the landing and divert 500 miles to Paris, where the calmer weather made hitting the tarmac possible.
They spent more than two hours waiting on the runway in France before flying back to Ireland. One person on the flight wrote online: “Flew from Manchester to Dublin today, only we didn’t land in Dublin, or back to Manchester. Bonjour from Paris!”
A British Airways flight on its way from Ibiza to London City Airport was diverted in the winds, with nervous passengers erupting into applause when the gush-gattered plane eventually touched down. Scores of passengers were left stranded at Bristol Airport overnight as their flights were either delayed or cancelled.
