A plane carrying passengers bound for the North East declared an emergency while thousands of feet in the air.

The Eastern Airways flight from Aberdeen to Newcastle Airport had been carrying 18 passengers when a malfunction emerged.

It comes just weeks after a Jet2 Boeing 737 on its way to Turkey declared an emergency and was forced to return to Newcastle.

Read more: Jet2 flight from Newcastle to Turkey makes U-turn after emergency

In a statement, the airline said: "On Sunday, July 17 a scheduled passenger flight operated by Eastern Airways as the T3 713 from Aberdeen to Newcastle had a nose-landing gear indication on approach to Newcastle Airport.

"The Jetstream 41 aircraft with 18 passengers and three crew on board landed safely at Newcastle at 3.39pm.

"As is standard operating procedure, an emergency was declared as a precaution, the local airport fire service attending as a precaution."

Read more: Robert Hattersley from Crawcrook dies aged 13 after River Tyne incident

The airline apologised to passengers as they offered reassurances that the aicraft involved is now being inspected to determine the fault.

They added: "Engineers will be inspecting the aircraft to determine the cause of the indication. We apologise to passengers for the inconvenience, but the safety of our passengers and crew is paramount.”

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