Passengers were left stranded on planes this evening (January 25) after the lights on Bristol Airport's runway went out. The technical issue forced all flights be grounded at the airfield while others due to arrive there were forced to divert elsewhere.
At 8.27pm, the airport tweeted that its runway lights had "suffered a failure" which meant planes could not land or take off. It added engineers were working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.
An update sent at 9.44pm said that the issue had been fixed and flights could operate there again. However, it warned of "knock-on disruption".
Read more: Bristol Airport lights failure forces flights to be grounded
The message on Twitter said: "Update: our runway has now reopened, allowing flights to land and take-off. There may be knock-on disruption - passengers should contact their airline for information.
"We're very sorry for the disruption. Engineers will be working through the night to fix the fault fully."
The incident led to dozens of passengers being left stuck on planes. Rhys Griffiths, an EasyJet passenger flying into Bristol, said the plane he was on had to be diverted to Cardiff.
"We're flying back from Toulouse, having flown there from Lisbon this morning," he said. "Some people managed to get off and have gone home from Cardiff, plane is just a bit frustrated of course, but nothing special."
He added that he was actually due to be heading back to Swansea, but needed to pick his car up from Bristol. Eventually, passengers on board Rhys' plane were told they would hopefully get back to Bristol this evening.
Rhys said: "We've been told they'll either refuel the plane and fly us back when they can get a slot, which I think was about 11pm, and if not, they said they'll get the buses but there aren't any available in Cardiff so it'll take while again. We're refuelling now, captain just told us they hope to take off in the next 15 minutes."
However, even when passengers did arrive back at Bristol, further problems occurred. Emily Lynch, who was flying back from a work trip to Edinburgh, told BristolLive: "I’m hoping we can get off the plane as apparently there are missing steps. Everyone has now arrived at the same time so we’re being held on the plane."
She added the plane she was stuck at Edinburgh for an hour before they could take off. Emily said: "They [the cabin crew] weren’t too bad to be fair - but was really frustrating as they boarded us minutes before the announcement."
READ NEXT
