A Ryanair passenger has described his "worry" during a flight from Cork Airport to Alicante in Spain that was diverted on Sunday.
Flight FR4157 was forced to change course at 25,000ft over Cornwall.
Instead of arriving in sunny Spain, the plane landed at London's Stansted Airport at 8.34pm instead.
The reason for the diversion was "a minor bird strike" during the flight.
The passengers landed safely, got off the plane and boarded another Ryanair aircraft without going into the airport.
They were only delayed for two hours in total, arriving in Alicante later on Sunday night.
A Ryanair spokesperson said: "This flight from Cork to Alicante (22 Aug) diverted to Stansted following a minor bird strike.
"The aircraft landed normally, and customers were transferred to a replacement aircraft which departed to Alicante after a short delay.
"Ryanair sincerely apologised to all customers affected by this diversion and delay, which was entirely beyond our control.”
Tony Tobin from Cork City was on the flight and described the worry felt by passengers after they heard a loud noise within the plane.
He said he realised early into the flight that something was awry as the "loud rattle" was so bad you could not hear the person next to you.
"We were a bit worried but we weren't too worried either because we were flying away and nobody was saying anything," he told Patricia Messinger on C103's CorkToday Show.
Mr Tobin explained that around an hour into the flight, the captain announced they would be diverting to Bristol in the UK "because of an issue with the plane".
Shortly afterwards, it was announced they would land in Stansted, and they landed safely, albeit with "a fairly big bump".
He said the passengers were not told anything else about the issue with the plane but that the staff were very helpful.
"I have to say the crew were very good, they informed us as much as they could but I think they were a bit in the dark too," Mr Tobin said.
The passengers were escorted to another plane and within 30 minutes they were in the air again.
There were no other issues from there on out, and they landed two hours later than their scheduled arrival in Alicante.
"The captain and the staff on the plane were brilliant, whatever they knew they told us," Mr Tobin added.
