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- A Ryanair flight failed to land in Scotland three times before diverting to Manchester.
- The Guardian reported its technical log showed there was only about six minutes’ worth of fuel left.
- Passengers reached Glasgow Prestwick Airport 10 hours late after traveling by coach.
A Ryanair flight is under investigation after it touched down with virtually no fuel left following three failed landing attempts and a diversion during a storm.
Flight 3418 departed Pisa, Italy, on October 3, bound for Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland.
The UK’s Met Office had issued weather warnings for strong winds and rain as Storm Amy made landfall.
Prestwick Airport saw winds up to 50 mph, while tens of thousands of Scottish homes lost power, and a derelict building collapsed in Glasgow.
Two and a half hours after takeoff, the Ryanair Boeing 737 was descending toward Prestwick. However, data from Flightradar24 shows that its two landing attempts were unsuccessful.
It circled around and headed for Edinburgh, where the storm was lighter but wind speeds were still clocked at over 30 mph.
Flightradar24 shows the plane descended below 2,000 feet but was again unable to touch down.
The pilots headed south of the border and managed to land in Manchester, England, around 175 miles away, just before 9 p.m. local time.
That was about two hours after they first approached Prestwick.
On Friday, The Guardian reported that it had seen a photo of the flight’s technical log, which showed the plane had 220kg of fuel left.
Pilots told the newspaper that that would be enough for only five or six minutes of flying.
Meanwhile, passengers were over 200 miles away from their intended destination.
One of those on board, Alexander Marchi, told the local newspaper, the Ayr Advertiser, that passengers were taken to Prestwick by coach, arriving at 4:15 a.m.
That was around 10 hours later than expected.
The UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch has “commenced an investigation” into the “serious incident,” it said in a statement shared with Business Insider.
“AAIB Inspectors have begun making enquiries and gathering evidence,” it added.
Ryanair told Business Insider that it reported the incident to authorities on the day it happened.
“As this is now subject of an ongoing investigation, which we are cooperating fully with, we are unable to comment,” it added.
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