A Jet2 plane was forced to divert this morning after a suspected bird strike.
The flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to Lanzarote had to be diverted to Manchester Airport.
Flight radars spotted the plane circling around the Yorkshire airport before crossing the Pennines at 4,500ft.
Fire crews could be seen waiting for the flight at Manchester Airport.
Flightradar showed the path
Flightradar24/PA
One FlightRadar member said: "ls217 from LBA (Leeds Bradford Airport) to ACE (Lanzarote) suffered bird strike on departure. Declared 7700 emergency squawk. circled to burn off fuel and has just landed at Manchester Airport."
A 7700 emergency squawk signal indicates a serious issue onboard the aircraft. According to scanners used by plane spotters, a bird had struck the plane's engines.
Data from Planespotters show that G-JZHM, the aircraft operating this flight is a 7.4 year old Boeing 737-800. It was delivered to Jet2 back in November 2016.
A spokesperson from Jet2 said: "Flight LS217 from Leeds Bradford to Lanzarote followed procedure and diverted to Manchester as a precautionary measure due to a suspected bird strike. After landing safely, the aircraft taxied to stand as normal and we are transferring customers onto a replacement aircraft which will fly them to enjoy their well-deserved holidays in Lanzarote."
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The flight circled the skies above North Yorkshire several times before heading south West
FlightRadar24
President and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation Hassan Shahidi told the Washington Post: "Bird strikes are a hazard to aviation...And it happens frequently, and not just to commercial airplanes, but to all sorts of aircraft."
Assistant professor of aeronautical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Flavio Mendonca said that while bird strikes can refer to any time a bird hits a plane, any strike to the engine is the most disruptive.
He said: "If it’s bird ingestions in the engine, there might be a lot of damage to the aircraft...There might be another problem with the other engine that is still operating. They may not know the amount of damage to the engine if there was a bird ingestion."
Shahidi said engine manufacturers test for bird strikes and pilots are trained on how to respond if they lose an engine in flight.
The most famous example of a bird strike impacting an engine is after striking geese hit the engine of a US Airways jet shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in 2009.
Captain, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III, brought the plane down in the Hudson River, with all 155 people on board saved.
The story was adapted by Clint Eastwood into the 2016 film Sully.
