Investigation gets underway after emergency landing

An investigation was underway today after a passenger plane carrying 43 people was forced to make an emergency landing.

The British Airways aircraft made a diversion to Prestwick airport, in Ayrshire, at 6.15pm yesterday after the pilot received a warning from his instruments.

Airport officials said that police and the fire brigade were alerted but the air turbo prop plane, which was flying on a scheduled service from Glasgow International to Belfast City airport, managed to land safely.

The 39 passengers and four crew were removed and taken to the terminal building, No-one was injured.

A replacement plane arrived at the airport last night and took passengers who wished to continue their journey to Belfast.

A BA spokesman said that the plane had got into difficulties 30 minutes after leaving Glasgow, when the captain received a brake overheat warning light on his display and shut down one engines as a precaution.

The spokesman said: "The captain is very experienced, as are all the crew, and trained in these issues and would have acted according to established procedures.

"The aircraft has now made its way off the runway and engineers will obviously inspect it to establish the cause of the incident.

"There will be a full investigation."