A holiday jet has been forced to make an unscheduled landing at Shannon Airport this evening.
The Thomas Cook Airlines flight 5828 was travelling from the Tenerife to Oslo when the crew declared a medical emergency shortly before 8 o’clock.
There were almost 400 passengers and crew on board the Airbus A330-300 jet.
The crew reported they had an ill passenger on board who had been assessed by a doctor. It’s understood the doctor recommended that the crew divert and land as soon as possible.
Airport emergency crews were placed on standby at the airport for the jet when it landed just after 8.30. A HSE ambulance and local doctor were also waiting at the terminal building for the flight.
The passenger has been taken to University Hospital Limerick for treatment.
The flight was expected to continue it’s journey after the crew received a new flight plan and the passengers baggage had been removed in accordance with security procedures.
Two inbound flights were placed in a holding pattern for a short time until the emergency flight had landed safely.
With the longest runway in Ireland, at 3.2 kilometres, Shannon sees emergency diversions on an almost weekly basis.
The airport saw an almost two-fold increase in medical emergencies last year handling a total of 22 incidents where aircraft were forced to divert with ill patients. There were 12 similar incidents in 2013.