A Jet2 flight heading to Tenerife was forced to make an emergency landing at Manchester Airport due to a cracked windshield. Flight LS633, which had initially taken off from East Midlands Airport, was diverted to Manchester shortly after departure, resulting in passengers disembarking at the UK airport instead of their intended destination in the Canary Islands.
According to Flight Aware, the plane landed safely at approximately 11.30am. Jet2 released a statement explaining the situation: “We can confirm that flight LS633 from East Midlands to Tenerife South diverted to Manchester Airport earlier today, due to a technical issue.
“At no point was safety compromised, and the aircraft landed as normal before customers were transferred onto a replacement aircraft. We would like to apologise to customers for the delay.”
A similar incident occurred in December last year, when a plane was struck by lightning, resulting in a cracked windshield in the cockpit. The Loganair flight, LM26, had departed from Manchester Airport en route to Aberdeen, Scotland, but turned back and landed safely at Manchester approximately 29 minutes after takeoff.
Morag McLeod shared with The Mirror her recent unsettling experience while flying, detailing how she and her partner were on a connecting journey from Houston, Texas, landing in Manchester around 9:30am, reports the Mirror.
Following a lengthy wait for their next flight, they finally took to the skies that afternoon. McLeod said she had been asleep when their plane was struck by lightning. She mistook it initially for turbulence until her partner roused her. He suspected he had witnessed “what looked like lightning” shortly before the pilots confirmed the aircraft’s lightning strike.
Detailing the incident, she said: “I was actually sleeping as we were a connecting flight from Houston. We arrived in Manchester airport at 9.30am and had to wait several hours for our connecting flight.”
She added: “I felt what I thought was turbulence – however, my partner knows a bit about aviation and he had seen what looked like lightning and he awoke me just prior to the captain announcing that the aircraft had been struck. My partner knew something wasn’t right as the aircraft stopped ascending and began circling in the air which he believes was the aircraft circling Manchester airport awaiting clearance to emergency land.”
While evacuating from the aircraft, Morag managed to capture a photograph of the cockpit which exhibited a cracked windscreen, illustrating the aftermath as the plane sat stationary at Manchester Airport.