Holiday jet in runway drama

A HOLIDAY jet with 220 passengers on board had to abort take-off at Manchester Airport when a Ryanair plane just landed from Dublin taxied across its path, it was revealed yesterday.

The British Air Accident Investigation Branch is investigating the incident.

A spokeswoman for Ryanair said the firm had been verbally cleared of any wrongdoing.

She said: “We have received verbal acknowledgement from the AAIB that Ryanair was not implicated in this incident.”

The MyTravel plane was taking off for France when a recently-landed Ryanair plane crossed the runway. The MyTravel pilot aborted take-off and performed an emergency stop of his Airbus A321 craft. Take-off was delayed for around 90 minutes while engineers carried out safety checks and tested the brakes.

The Ryanair plane, a Boeing 737, had just landed from Dublin and was crossing the other runway to reach the terminal. Nobody was injured in the incident, which took place at 10.30am on Sunday.

A MyTravel spokesman said: “We can confirm that a MyTravel Airways aircraft carried out an aborted take-off for safety reasons at Manchester Airport on Sunday February 29.

“The airline has reported the incident to the Civil Aviation Authority and the Air Accident Investigation Branch.”

A spokesman for the Air Accident Investigation Branch confirmed it was investigating the incident.

He refused to give any details about how close the two planes came to colliding or whether the incident was being classified as a “near-miss”.

Sources at MyTravel said its plane was cleared for take-off by air traffic controllers, and a Ryanair spokeswoman said: “The Ryanair craft was complying with air traffic control instructions.”

A spokesman for National Air Traffic Services said: “We will not know exactly what happened until the AAIB investigation is complete, so it would not be appropriate to comment.”

A spokesman for National Air Traffic Services later said a controller had been suspended as a result of the incident.

He said: “The air traffic controller involved has been suspended, which is an entirely routine procedure while any investigation of this type is undertaken.”