Birmingham Airport reopens after suspending flights because of ‘suspicious item’
Birmingham Airport has reopened after suspending all takeoffs and landings when a suspicious item was reportedly found aboard an Aer Lingus flight.
An aircraft from the Irish airline took off from the airport on a scheduled flight to Belfast on Tuesday afternoon but then returned to Birmingham, data from Flight Radar 24 says.
Unconfirmed reports suggested a suspicious item may have been found on board, but an Aer Lingus spokesman said: “We can confirm that an undeclared item discovered on Aer Lingus Regional flight EI3647, operated by Emerald Airlines, from Birmingham to Belfast today was not a security risk.
“Our teams are currently working to accommodate impacted passengers.”.
The flight, which appeared to be EI3647, had been scheduled to depart at 3.10pm but took off after a delay of around 40 minutes. It returned to Birmingham just over an hour later, landing at 4.25pm.
A Birmingham Airport spokesman said the airport had “temporarily suspended operations due to a security incident on an aircraft”.
Live footage from the scene suggested that the aircraft, an ATR-72 regional turboprop airliner with 72 seats, was parked at a remote corner of the airfield.
The airliner was later moved back to the terminal after officials declared it was safe.
