More than 250 holidaymakers were left scared and confused when they had to make an emergency landing at Manchester Airport this morning – due to a ‘creaking’ plane.
All 278 passengers on a Thomas Cook flight to Turkey landed safely after the plane was returned to Manchester due to a technical fault.
Flight TCX2534 from Manchester to Dalaman took off at 7.15am and was still in UK airspace when the pilot requested a priority landing and returned to Manchester Airport.
Passenger @JSmithJoinery said on twitter that the Boeing 767 began ‘creaking like mad, got near London and the pilot announced “we need to turn around and return to Manchester DUE TO A TECHNICAL FAULT!”
JESUS CHRIST!!! Just made emergency landing!!!
— J. Smith Joinery (@JSmithJoinery) October 13, 2014
On further inspection engineers confirmed that the aircraft suffered an unexpected hydraulic fault on one of the three systems on board.
A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said: “We’d like to apologise to our customers for the delay to their flight today.
“Returning the aircraft to Manchester allowed our engineers to inspect the aircraft quickly and we’ve now been able to ensure our customers can start their holiday as soon as possible on a replacement aircraft.”
Passengers have now been allocated an alternative aircraft and have departed for Dalaman.
Passenger Steph Sloane tweeted: “Let’s hope this one doesn’t land back at Manchester 15mins after take off surrounded by the fire brigade!”
Image courtesy of Alex Polezhaev, with thanks.
