A Ryanair flight was forced to land nearly 150 miles from its original destination this morning after being seemingly unable to touch ground at the airport it was meant to arrive to. Ryanair flight FR2253 / RYR93QF departed from Lisbon, Portugal, at 3.20pm on Thursday.

It was meant to land in Manchester later on the same day, but instead it diverted to Newcastle. It safely landed at 6.05. Flight tracker Flightradar24 shows the plane circling over Manchester Airport first and then over Lancashire before heading north, to Newcastle.

Flightradar24 claimed in a post on X that the flight was "diverting away after multiple approaches", the MEN reports.

This comes as large areas of the UK were placed under a Met Office 15-hour weather warning for strong winds, lasting between 5am and 8pm on March 12.

The warning stated: "Strong winds are expected during Thursday associated with an active weather front moving southeastwards across the UK. Gusts of 50-55 mph are expected widely, with some coastal locations and areas downwind of high ground seeing gusts of 60 mph or even 70 mph in a few places. Winds will ease from the north through the day."

Brits were warned by the national forecaster that some delays to road, rail, air and ferry transport would be likely in these conditions.

This morning, an easyJet flight to Edinburgh Airport was diverted to Manchester Airport after declaring a mid-air emergency due to the unsettled weather conditions and high winds.

A spokesperson for easyJet said: "Flight EJU7835 from Amsterdam to Edinburgh this morning was required to divert to Manchester due to winds gusting outside the limits of the aircraft and so we have arranged onward coach transfers to Edinburgh for customers.

"The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is our highest priority and while this was outside of our control, we are sorry for the inconvenience caused by the weather."