EasyJet Flight Diverts to Liverpool After Bristol Bird Strike

An EasyJet flight bound for Bristol Airport from Madrid was forced to declare a fuel emergency and divert to Liverpool John Lennon Airport on Sunday evening after a bird strike at its destination grounded operations there.

The incident involved flight U22708, an Airbus A320 carrying passengers on a routine two-hour journey from the Spanish capital. Scheduled to arrive at Bristol at 10 p.m. on January 25, the aircraft approached the airport amid a sudden closure of all runways. The shutdown stemmed from a bird strike on a separate plane, which collided with wildlife during operations. Such events, common in aviation but potentially hazardous, necessitate immediate inspections to remove debris and verify runway safety before flights can resume.

As ground crews conducted the thorough check, the EasyJet plane entered a holding pattern over Bristol, circling for several minutes without clearance to land. This prolonged wait depleted the aircraft's fuel reserves to critical levels. The pilots first issued a Pan-Pan alert to air traffic control, signaling urgency, before escalating to the international Squawk 7700 code, indicating a full emergency. Under these protocols, controllers...