The last 61 passengers of a group of 221, who were forced back to Shannon on Thursday afternoon when an American Transair jet developed engine trouble, flew on to New York last night, Arthur Quinlan reports from Shannon.
Within an hour of take off from Shannon for New York, the original Lockheed Tri Star jet, which is the second new generation of wide bodied air buses, developed an oil problem which forced the pilot to shut down one of the three engines.
The passengers were taken overnight to four different Limerick hotels while mechanics worked on the engine. Yesterday, 160 of them flew out on Aer Lingus flight 107 to New York at 2.35 p.m.
The remaining 61 passengers left Shannon on an American Transair jet which arrived from Belfast via Dublin at 7.05 p.m.