Military aircraft with suspected fire makes emergency landing at Cork airport

Kenneth Fox

There has been an emergency at Cork Airport this morning.

A French military aircraft was diverted and made an emergency landing.

As the Irish Examiner reports, the twin-prop ATR-type aircraft declared a midflight emergency and diverted to Cork triggering a major emergency response at the airport.

The military plane had 23 people on board.

The crew on board the aircraft declared a pan-pan alert to air traffic controllers amid concerns about a possible fire in the tail area of their aircraft. A pan-pan alert is a less serious alert than a full may-day alert.

In a statement, Cork Airport said emergency services, including airport police and the fire service, were on standby for the aircraft's arrival.

The plane touched down safely shortly after 8am and emergency services have since been stood down.

A scheduled Ryanair departure to Manchester was delayed by just seven minutes.

All flight operations have now resumed at the airport.