Ryanair Flight 3445 Circles Airport 9 Times Due to Emergency

A Ryanair flight was forced to spend an hour circling Manchester airport (United Kingdom) after striking a bird on take off. The plane was heading to Palma in Mallorca when the pilot had to loop the airport nine times to burn fuel before abandoning the journey and returning to Manchester.

The flight crew declared an emergency a little after 6pm yesterday. It was due to arrive in Palma at 8:50pm but it instead landed in Manchester at around 7pm. A Ryanair spokeswoman said FR3445 was able to land normally and passengers departed safely. It was clarified that a bird strike had caused the issue.