A passenger plane from Scotland had to be diverted after a storm knocked out an airport’s air traffic control system.
The easyJet flight from Edinburgh to Bristol yesterday was re-routed to Birmingham after a lightning strike is believed to have caused a technical fault at Bristol airport.
A passenger on board told how the pilot set a course back to the Midlands as the jet ran low on fuel.
They said: “On a flight from Edinburgh to Bristol.
"Can’t land. Radio tower been hit by lightning and knocked signal out. Running low on fuel plane got to turn to Birmingham to refuel.”
The flight landed safely in Birmingham and passengers were bussed back to Bristol with no other flights affected.
A spokeswoman for easyJet said: “easyJet can confirm that flight EZY428 from Edinburgh to Bristol on 27 October was required to divert to Birmingham due to adverse weather conditions in the Bristol area causing the airport to temporarily close.
“Customers disembarked in Birmingham where we provided onward coach transfers to Bristol.
“The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is our highest priority.
“Whilst this was outside of our control we would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused by the weather.”
A spokesman for Bristol Airport blamed an “electrical storm” for the fault and praised air traffic controllers for getting the system back up and running.
He said: “Due to an electrical storm during the evening on Tuesday 27 October one arriving flight diverted to Birmingham airport due to a technical fault with the telecommunication infrastructure supplying Air Traffic Control.
“No other systems or flights were impacted.
“The NATS team worked hard to resolve the issue and returned the system to normal operation.”
