Emergency landing after fire extinguisher 'discharges' in cockpit of Ryanair flight
A Ryanair flight was forced to make an emergency landing this morning after a fire extinguisher in the cockpit suffered a fault.
Flight FR8321 from London to Valencia was diverted to Barcelona airport shortly after 10am this morning.
The flight landed safely at 10.26am.
A statement from Ryanair confirmed the flight was diverted "due to a minor fault with a cockpit fire extinguisher."
"The aircraft landed normally and was inspected by a Ryanair engineer, who replaced the fire extinguisher and cleared the aircraft to return to service.
"Customers remained on board and this flight has since departed to Valencia."
Passenger and TV presenter Hannah White tweeted that the fire extinguisher went off in the cockpit during flight and "the pilot couldn't breathe".
A spokesperson for Ryanair said the pilots followed standard safety procedure by putting on their masks, but said the fire extinguisher had a "minor fault" but did not "discharge".
The flight trucks are lined up as we make an emergency landing in #Barcelona pic.twitter.com/7jekWO6SEG
— Hannah White (@hannahwhiteuk) March 19, 2015
She also tweeted a photo from the runway in Barcelona, showing a series of fire trucks lined up outside the plane, and said the "stressful situation [was] dealt with brilliantly and resolved efficiently".
Another passenger, Josh Adler, tweeted that the pilot was attended to by medics after the landing, but was in good health.
