Birmingham Airport runway shut after ‘incident with aircraft’

BREAKING

In a statement, the airport said: "Following an aircraft incident, the runway is temporarily closed.

"We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause.

"We will keep passengers already at the airport informed, and those due to travel later today are advised to check the status of their flight before coming to the airport.

"We will continue to issue updates when we can."

It's been reported that many flights are being diverted to alternate airports.

Pictures from the airport show a light aircraft which appears to have no landing gear.

The plane is surrounded by emergency vehicles.

All departures and arrivals have been stopped until 6pm after the plane, a twin-engined Beech King Air, declared an in-flight emergency and diverted to Birmingham.

The plane had been originally planned to fly to Belfast.

The plane is reportedly the same model that crashed at Southend airport in July killing all four people on board.