A full emergency plan was activated at Cork Airport on Wednesday morning after smoke started to appear in the cockpit of a plane travelling from Birmingham.
The plane with fifty nine passengers and four crew on board was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after 10am. Six fire brigade units responded after the captain raised the alarm and alerted management at Cork Airport of the situation in the plane.
An emergency corridor from the airport to Cork University Hospital was established. The plane landed safely at 10.05am. The emergency was then stood down.
Speaking to Red FM News Cork Airport communications manager, Kevin Cullinane, said the situation passed without serious incident.
“The emergency plan for Cork Airport was activated. So all the various emergency services within the region were deployed. The aircraft safely landed at Cork Airport at five past ten.
“All 59 passengers have safely disembarked the aircraft thanks to the speedy and efficient response of our airport and the fire brigade.”
Gwynn George, a passenger on board the flight, said the situation was handled very professionally.
“To be honest we didn’t realise that anything had happened until we landed and saw the fire brigade because they were really calm on the flight.
They probably just told us to pack up our stuff earlier than we would have done and they were very quick and efficient in doing that.”