Shannon remains the state’s busiest airport for unscheduled landings and aircraft emergencies despite a drop in diversions last year.
Figures released by the Shannon Airport Authority show the mid-west airport handled a total of 113 unscheduled landings in 2017.
Fifty-four of these were aircraft that diverted for reasons including weather at other airports; flight crews being out of hours or because a flight’s destination airport was closed. The airport dealt with 174 such diversions in 2016.
Apart from these, there were 24 emergency medical diversions last year, down from 30 in 2016. In three cases, passengers died on board their flight or before reaching University Hospital Limerick.
There were also five ‘declared aircraft emergencies’ as well as three ‘Pan’ diversions which are less serious but still required the crew to divert and land at the nearest suitable airport.
There were 3 incidents where airport crash crews were placed on ‘local standby’ but did not need to turn out. Twenty-four aircraft diverted with technical issues.
A Dublin Airport Authority spokeswoman confirmed that there were 56 flight diversions at the country’s busiest airport last year. The DAA does not however release details of the diversion categories although the majority are believed to have been weather related.
Meanwhile, Cork Airport handled four diversions in 2017. One of these was a medical emergency while the others were due to weather problems at other airports.
