The arrival of the two Libyan fighter pilots in Malta on Monday caught the attention of both local and foreign readers with the story on timesofmalta.com attracting over 91,000 views.

As the news of the pilots’ landing and the Libya protests developed, The Times’ website experienced a sharp rise in visitors and page views. Almost 118,000 visitors checked out the website on Monday, which translated into 1.5 million page views. Just over half the traffic was generated locally, with 11 per cent coming from the US and over eight per cent from the UK. The news of the pilots’ arrival made international headlines and media all over the world followed as the violence in Libya escalated.

The pilots, who applied for asylum status, are believed to have fled Libya because they refused to bomb civilians.

The Times’ website attracts an average of 75,000 visitors and 850,000 page views a day. Monday’s fighter pilots’ story was only topped last year when 180,000 visitors entered the site to read about the panda images stencilled onto two billboards advertising the Pope’s visit in April.

So far this year, the story about the Libyan fighter jets topped the most popular list followed by the story about the destruction caused by the strong winds last Friday that attracted over 74,000 views. This was followed by news about the death of cancer patient Annabelle Vassallo last month that attracted over 65,000 views.