Injuries force Ryanair plane to make emergency landing

Two passengers were slightly injured when a Ryanair aircraft encountered turbulence over the Tyrrhenian Sea on a Malta-Treviso route on Thursday night, the low-cost airline said.

This forced the pilot to make an emergency landing at the closest airport, Bologna, with the plane landing normally and the two injured passengers receiving medical assistance on arrival, a Ryanair spokesman said.

Describing the ordeal as an “unfortunate but rare incident”, the spokesman said the plane was inspected by engineers and cleared to continue to Treviso.

When asked for the nationalities of the injured, the spokesman said Ryanair would not be making further comments about the incident.

The incident was also reported in the Italian media, with La Tribuna Di Treviso putting the number of the injured at six, five passengers and a steward, who was hospitalised, when luggage fell out of the overhead compartments.

Il Gazzettino said only three were injured, two cabin crew members and a passenger, after knocking their heads against the compartments because they were not buckled up during two consecutive air pockets 40 minutes into the flight.